American  <§tate£men 


GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS 


BT 


THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 

(€&  tftoersi&e  £«0&  Camfcri&g? 

1890 


Copyright,  1888, 
BT  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT. 

All  rights  reserved. 


T&e  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge,  Mass.,   U.  S.  A. 
Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  H.  0.  Houghton  &  Company. 


INTRODUCTION, 


Two  generations  ago  the  average  American 
biographer  was  certainly  a  marvel  of  turgid  and 
aimless  verbosity ;  and  the  reputations  of  our 
early  statesmen  have  in  no  way  proved  their 
vitality  more  clearly  than  by  surviving  their 
entombment  in  the  pages  of  the  authors  who 
immediately  succeeded  them.  No  one  of  the 
founders  of  the  Constitution  has  suffered  more 
in  this  respect  than  has  he  who  was  perhaps 
the  most  brilliant,  although  by  no  means  the 
greatest,  of  the  whole  number,  —  Gouvernetir 
Morris. 

Jared  Sparks,  hitherto  Morris's  sole  biogra 
pher,  wrote  innumerable  volumes  on  American 
history,  many  of  which  are  still  very  valuable, 
and  some  of  them  almost  indispensable,  to  the 
student.  The  value,  however,  comes  wholly 
from  the  matter ;  Mr.  Sparks  is  not  only  a 
very  voluminous  writer,  but  he  is  also  a  quite 
abnormally  dull  one.  His  "  Life  of  Gouv- 
erneur  Morris"  is  typical  of  most  of  his  work. 


vi  INTRODUCTION. 

He  collected  with  great  industry  facts  about 
Mr.  Morris,  and  edited  a  large  number  of  his 
letters  and  state  papers,  with  numerous  selec 
tions,  not  always  well  chosen,  from  his  Diary. 
Other  merits  the  book  has  none,  and  it  has 
one  or  two  marked  faults.  He  failed  to  un 
derstand  that  a  biographer's  duties  are  not 
necessarily  identical  with  those  of  a  professional 
eulogist ;  but  for  this  he  is  hardly  to  blame,  as 
all  our  writers  then  seemed  to  think  it  neces 
sary  to  shower  indiscriminate  praise  on  every 
dead  American  —  whether  author,  soldier, 
politician,  or  what  not  —  save  only  Benedict 
Arnold.  He  was  funnily  unconscious  of  his 
own  prolix  dullness ;  and  actually  makes  pro 
fuse  apologies  for  introducing  extracts  from 
Morris's  bright,  interesting  writings  into  his 
own  drearily  platitudinous  pages,  hoping  that 
"  candor  and  justice"  will  make  his  readers  par 
don  the  "  negligence  "  and  "  defects  of  style," 
which  the  extracts  contain.  He  could  not  resist 
the  temptation  now  and  then  to  improve  Mor 
ris's  English,  and  to  soften  down,  or  omit  any 
thing  that  he  deemed  either  improper  or  beneath 
the  stilted  "  dignity  "  of  history.  For  example, 
Morris  states  that  Marie  Antoinette,  when  pur 
sued  by  the  Parisian  fishwives,  fled  from  her 
bed  u  in  her  shift  and  petticoat,  with  her  stock 
ings  in  her  hand;"  such  particularity  struck 


INTR  OD  U  CTION.  vii 

Mr.  Sparks  as  shockingly  coarse,  and  with  much 
refinement  he  replaced  the  whole  phrase  by 
44  in  her  undress."  An  oath  he  would  not  per- 
mit  to  sully  his  pages  on  any  terms  ;  thus  when 
Morris  wrote  that  Pennsylvania  would  find  Sir 
Henry  Clinton  "  a  most  damnable  physician," 
Mr.  Sparks  simply  left  out  the  offending  sen 
tence  altogether.  This  kind  of  thing  he  did 
again  and  again. 

Still  he  gives  almost  all  of  Morris's  writings 
that  are  of  political  interest.  It  is,  however, 
greatly  to  be  desired  that  we  should  have  a 
much  more  complete  edition  of  his  letters  and 
Diary,  on  account  of  the  extremely  interesting 
descriptions  they  contain  of  the  social  life  of  the 
period,  both  in  America  and  in  Europe.  As 
regards  his  public  career,  and  his  views  and 
writings  on  public  subjects,  we  already  have 
ample  material,  much  of  which  has  appeared 
since  Sparks's  biography  was  written,  and  some 
of  which  is  here  presented  for  the  first  time. 

Morris's  speeches  in  the  Constitutional  Con 
vention  have  been  preserved,  in  summarized 
form,  by  Madison  in  his  "  Debates : "  of  these,  of 
course,  Sparks  was  necessarily  ignorant.  Miss 
Annie  Carey  Morris  has  written  two  articles  in 
44  Scribner's  Magazine  "  for  January  and  Febru 
ary,  1887,  on  her  grandfather's  life  in  Paris 
during  the  French  Revolution,  giving  some  new 


vili  INTRODUCTION. 

and  interesting  details.  A  good  article  ap 
peared  in  "  Macmillan's  Magazine "  for  No 
vember,  1885,  the  writer  evidently  having  been 
attracted  to  the  subject  by  the  way  in  which 
Taine  made  Morris's  writings  a  basis  for  so 
much  of  his  own  great  work  on  the  Revolution. 
Decidedly  the  best  piece  upon  Morris  that  has 
yet  been  written,  however,  is  the  admirable 
sketch  by  Mr.  Henry  Cabot  Lodge  in  the  "  At 
lantic  Monthly"  for  April,  1886. 

My  thanks  are  especially  due  the  Hon.  John 
Jay  for  furnishing  me  many  valuable  letters, 
hitherto  unpublished,  of  both  Jay  and  Morris ; 
and  for  giving  me  additional  information  about 
Morris's  private  life,  and  other  matters.  All 
the  letters  here  quoted  that  are  not  given  by 
Sparks  are  to  be  found  either  in  the  Jay  MSS. 
or  the  Pickering  MSS.  Mr.  Jay  also  furnished 
me  with  the  account  of  the  way  in  which  Louis 
Philippe  was  finally  persuaded  to  pay  the  debt 
he  owed  Morris. 


CONTENTS 


PAGH 

INTRODUCTION v 

CHAPTER  L 
His  YOUTH  :  COLONIAL  NEW  YORK 1 

CHAPTER  II. 

THE  OUTBREAK    OP  THE  REVOLUTION  :   MORRIS  IN 
THE  PROVINCIAL  CONGRESS 28 

CHAPTER  III. 
INDEPENDENCE  :  FORMING  THE  STATE  CONSTITUTION  .    53 

CHAPTER  IV. 
IN  THE  CONTINENTAL  CONGRESS 76 

CHAPTER  V. 
FINANCES  :  THE  TREATY  OF  PEACE 99 

CHAPTER   VI. 
THE  FORMATION  or  THE  NATIONAL  CONSTITUTION     .  125 


X  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  VIL 
FIBST  STAY  IN  FRANCE     ...........  169 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
LIFE  IN  PARIS 


CHAPTER  IX. 
MISSION  TO  ENGLAND  :  RETURN  TO  PARIS     ....  227 

CHAPTER  X. 
MINISTER  TO  FRANCE     ...........  252 

CHAPTER  XL 
STAY  IN  EUROPE  ..............  300 

CHAPTER  XII. 
SERVICE  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  SENATE     ....  320 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

THE  NORTHERN  DISUNION    MOVEMENT    AMONG    THE 
FEDERALISTS  ..............  347 


GOUYEEN"EUE  MOEEIS. 

CHAPTER  I. 
HIS  YOUTH:    COLONIAL  NEW   YOEK. 

WHEN,  on  January  31,  1752,  Gouverneur 
Morris  was  born  in  the  family  manor-house  at 
Morrisania,  on  the  lands  where  his  forefathers 
had  dwelt  for  three  generations,  New  York  col 
ony  contained  only  some  eighty  thousand  in 
habitants,  of  whom  twelve  thousand  were 
blacks.  New  York  city  was  a  thriving  little 
trading  town,  whose  people  in  summer  suffered 
much  from  the  mosquitoes  that  came  back  with 
the  cows  when  they  were  driven  home  at  night 
fall  for  milking ;  while  from  among  the  locusts 
and  water-beeches  that  lined  the  pleasant,  quiet 
streets,  the  tree  frogs  sang  so  shrilly  through 
the  long,  hot  evenings  that  a  man  in  speaking 
could  hardly  make  himself  heard. 

Gouverneur  Morris  belonged  by  birth  to 
that  powerful  landed  aristocracy  whose  rule 
was  known  by  New  York  alone  among  all  the 
1 


2  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

northern  colonies.  His  great-grandfather,  who 
had  served  in  the  Cromwellian  armies,  came  to 
the  seaport  at  the  mouth  of  the  Hudson,  while 
it  was  still  beneath  the  sway  of  Holland,  and 
settled  outside  of  Haerlem,  the  estate  being 
invested  with  manorial  privileges  by  the  original 
grant  of  the  governor.  In  the  next  two  gener 
ations  the  Morrises  had  played  a  prominent 
part  in  colonial  affairs,  both  the  father  and 
grandfather  of  Gouverneur  having  been  on  the 
bench,  and  having  also  been  members  of  the 
provincial  legislature,  where  they  took  the 
popular  side,  and  stood  up  stoutly  for  the  rights 
of  the  Assembly  in  the  wearisome  and  inter 
minable  conflicts  waged  by  the  latter  against 
the  prerogatives  of  the  crown  and  the  powers 
of  the  royal  governors.  The  Morrises  were 
restless,  adventurous  men,  of  erratic  temper 
and  strong  intellect ;  and,  with  far  more  than 
his  share  of  the  family  talent  and  brilliancy, 
young  Gouverneur  also  inherited  a  certain 
whimsical  streak  that  ran  through  his  char 
acter.  His  mother  was  one  of  the  Huguenot 
Gouverneurs,  who  had  been  settled  in  New 
York  since  the  revocation  of  the  Edict  of 
Nantes ;  and  it  was  perhaps  the  French  blood 
in  his  veins  that  gave  him  the  alert  vivacity 
and  keen  sense  of  humor  that  distinguished 
him  from  most  of  the  great  Revolutionary 
statesmen  who  were  his  contemporaries. 


. 

HIS    YOUTH:   COLONIAL  NEW  YORK.  8 

He  was  a  bright,  active  boy,  fond  of  shooting 
and  out -door  sports,  and  was  early  put  to 
school  at  the  old  Huguenot  settlement  of  New 
Rochelle,  where  the  church  service  was  still 
sometimes  held  in  French  ;  and  he  there  learned 
to  speak  and  write  this  language  almost  as 
well  as  he  could  English.  Thence,  after  the 
usual  preparatory  instruction,  he  went  to  King's 
College  —  now,  with  altered  name  and  spirit, 
Columbia  —  in  New  York. 

The  years  of  his  childhood  were  stirring 
ones  for  the  colonies  ;  for  England  was  then 
waging  the  greatest  and  most  successful  of  her 
colonial  contests  with  France  and  Spain  for  the 
possession  of  eastern  North  America.  Such 
contests,  with  their  usual  savage  accompani 
ments  in  the  way  of  Indian  warfare,  always 
fell  with  especial  weight  on  New  York,  whose 
border  lands  were  not  only  claimed,  but  even 
held  by  the  French,  and  within  whose  bounda 
ries  lay  the  great  confederacy  of  the  Six  Nations, 
the  most  crafty,  warlike,  and  formidable  of  all 
the  native  races,  infinitely  more  to  be  dreaded 
than  the  Algonquin  tribes  with  whom  the 
other  colonies  had  to  deal.  Nor  was  this  war 
any  exception  to  the  rule  ;  for  battle  after  bat 
tle  was  fought  on  our  soil,  from  the  day  when, 
unassisted,  the  purely  colonial  troops  of  New 
York  and  New  England  at  Lake  George  de- 


4  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

stroyed  Baron  Dieskau's  mixed  host  of  French 
regulars,  Canadian  militia,  and  Indian  allies, 
to  that  still  more  bloody  day  when,  on  the 
shores  of  Lake  Champlain,  Abercrombie's  great 
army  of  British  and  Americans  recoiled  before 
the  fiery  genius  of  Montcalm. 

When  once  the  war  was  ended  by  the  com 
plete  and  final  overthrow  of  the  French  power, 
and  the  definite  establishment  of  English 
supremacy  along  the  whole  Atlantic  seaboard, 
the  bickering  which  was  always  going  on  be 
tween  Great  Britain  and  her  American  sub 
jects,  and  which  was  but  partially  suppressed 
even  when  they  were  forced  to  join  in  common 
efforts  to  destroy  a  common  foe,  broke  out  far 
more  fiercely  than  ever.  While  the  colonists 
were  still  reaping  the  aftermath  of  the  contest 
in  the  shape  of  desolating  border  warfare 
against  those  Indian  tribes  who  had  joined  in 
the  famous  conspiracy  of  Pontiac,  the  Royal 
Parliament  passed  the  Stamp  Act,  and  thereby 
began  the  struggle  that  ended  in  the  Revolu 
tion. 

England's  treatment  of  her  American  sub 
jects  was  thoroughly  selfish ;  but  that  her  con 
duct  towards  them  was  a  wonder  of  tyranny, 
will  not  now  be  seriously  asserted ;  on  the 
contrary,  she  stood  decidedly  above  the  general 
European  standard  in  such  matters,  and  cer- 


HIS    YOUTH:   COLONIAL  NEW  YORK.  5 

tainly  treated  her  colonies  far  better  than 
France  and  Spain  did  theirs ;  and  she  herself 
had  undoubted  grounds  for  complaint  in,  for 
example,  the  readiness  of  the  Americans  to 
claim  military  help  in  time  of  danger,  together 
with  their  frank  reluctance  to  pay  for  it.  It 
was  impossible  that  she  should  be  so  far  in  ad 
vance  of  the  age  as  to  treat  her  colonists  as 
equals  ;  they  themselves  were  sometimes  quite 
as  intolerant  in  their  behavior  towards  men  of 
a  different  race,  creed,  or  color.  The  New  Eng 
land  Puritans  lacked  only  the  power,  but  not 
the  will,  to  behave  almost  as  badly  towards  the 
Pennsylvania  Quakers  as  did  the  Episcopalian 
English  towards  themselves.  Yet  granting  all 
this,  the  fact  remains,  that  in  the  Revolution 
ary  War  the  Americans  stood  towards  the  Brit 
ish  as  the  Protestant  peoples  stood  towards 
the  Catholic  powers  in  the  sixteenth  century, 
as  the  Parliamentarians  stood  towards  the 
Stewarts  in  the  seventeenth,  or  as  the  up 
holders  of  the  American  Union  stood  towards 
the  confederate  slave-holders  in  the  nineteenth ; 
that  is,  they  warred  victoriously  for  the  right 
in  a  struggle  whose  outcome  vitally  affected 
the  welfare  of  the  whole  human  race.  They 
settled,  once  for  all,  that  thereafter  the  people 
of  English*  stock  should  spread  at  will  over 
the  world's  waste  spaces,  keeping  all  their  old 


6  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

liberties  and  winning  new  ones  ;  and  they  took 
the  first  and  longest  step  in  establishing  the 
great  principle  that  thenceforth  those  Europe 
ans,  who  by  their  strength  and  daring  founded 
new  states  abroad,  should  be  deemed  to  have 
clone  so  for  their  own  profit  as  freemen,  and  not 
for  the  benefit  of  their  more  timid,  lazy,  or 
contented  brethren  who  stayed  behind. 

The  rulers  of  Great  Britain,  and  to  a  large 
extent  its  people,  looked  upon  the  American 
colonies  as  existing  primarily  for  the  good  of 
the  mother  country  :  they  put  the  harshest  re 
strictions  on  American  trade  in  the  interests 
of  British  merchants ;  they  discouraged  the 
spread  of  the  Americans  westward  ;  and  they 
claimed  the  right  to  decide  for  both  parties  the 
proportions  in  which  they  should  pay  their 
shares  of  the  common  burdens.  The  English 
and  Americans  were  not  the  subjects  of  a  com 
mon  sovereign  ;  for  the  English  were  them 
selves  the  sovereigns,  the  Americans  were  the 
subjects.  Whether  their  yoke  bore  heavily  or 
bore  lightly,  whether  it  galled  or  not,  mattered 
little ;  it  was  enough  that  it  was  a  yoke  to  war 
rant  a  proud,  free  people  in  throwing  it  off. 
We  could  not  thankfully  take  as  a  boon  part 
only  of  what  we  felt  to  be  our  lawful  due. 
"  We  do  not  claim  liberty  as  a  privilege,  but 
challenge  it  as  a  right,"  said  the  men  of  New 


HIS    YOUTH:   COLONIAL  NEW    YORK.  1 

York,  through  their  legislature,  in  1764 ;  and 
all  Americans  felt  with  them. 

Yet,  for  all  this,  the  feeling  of  loyalty  was 
strong  and  hard  to  overcome  throughout  the 
provinces,  and  especially  in  New  York.  The 
Assembly  wrangled  with  the  royal  governor; 
the  merchants  and  shipmasters  combined  to 
evade  the  intolerable  harshness  of  the  laws  of 
trade  that  tried  to  make  them  customers  of 
England  only  ;  the  householders  bitterly  re 
sented  the  attempts  to  quarter  troops  upon 
them  ;  while  the  soldiers  of  the  garrison  were 
from  time  to  time  involved  in  brawls  with  the 
lower  ranks  of  the  people,  especially  the  sail 
ors,  as  the  seafaring  population  was  large,  and 
miu-h  given  to  forcibly  releasing  men  taken 
by  the  press-gang  for  the  British  war -ships ; 
but  in  spite  of  everything  there  was  a  genu 
ine  sentiment  of  affection  and  respect  for  the 
British  crown  and  kingdom.  It  is  perfectly 
possible  that  if  British  statesmen  had  shown 
less  crass  and  brutal  stupidity,  if  they  had 
shown  even  the  wise  negligence  of  Walpole, 
this  feeling  of  loyalty  would  have  been  strong 
enough  to  keep  England  and  America  united 
until  they  had  learned  how  to  accommodate 
themselves  to  the  rapidly  changing  conditions  ; 
but  the  chance  was  lost  when  once  a  prince 
like  George  the  Third  came  to  the  throne.  It 


8  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

has  been  the  fashion  to  represent  this  king  as 
a  well  meaning,  though  dull  person,  whose 
good  morals  and  excellent  intentions  partially 
atoned  for  his  mistakes  of  judgment;  but  such 
a  view  is  curiously  false.  His  private  life,  it  is 
true,  showed  the  very  admirable  but  common 
place  virtues,  as  well  as  the  appalling  intellec 
tual  littleness,  barrenness,  and  stagnation,  of 
the  average  British  green-grocer ;  but  in  his 
public  career,  instead  of  rising  to  the  level  of 
harmless  and  unimportant  mediocrity  usually 
reached  by  the  sovereigns  of  the  House  of 
Hanover,  he  fairly  rivaled  the  Stuarts  in  his 
perfidy,  wrongheadedness,  political  debauchery, 
and  attempts  to  destroy  free  government,  and 
to  replace  it  by  a  system  of  personal  despotism. 
It  needed  all  the  successive  blunders  both  of 
himself  and  of  his  Tory  ministers  to  reduce  the 
loyal  party  in  New  York  to  a  minority,  by 
driving  the  moderate  men  into  the  patriotic 
or  American  camp  ;  and  even  then  the  loyalist 
minority  remained  large  enough  to  be  a  for 
midable  power,  and  to  plunge  the  embryonic 
state  into  a  ferocious  civil  war,  carried  on,  as  in 
the  Carolinas  and  Georgia,  with  even  more  bit 
terness  than  the  contest  against  the  British. 

The  nature  of  this  loyalist  party  and  the 
strength  of  the  conflicting  elements  can  only  be 
understood  after  a  glance  at  the  many  nation- 


HIS   YOUTH:  COLONIAL  NEW  YORK  9 

alities  that  in  New  York  were  being  blended 
into  one.  The  descendants  of  the  old  Dutch 
inhabitants  were  still  more  numerous  than  those 
of  any  other  one  race,  while  the  French  Hu 
guenots,  who,  being  of  the  same  Calvinistic  faith, 
were  closely  mixed  with  them,  and  had  been  in 
the  land  nearly  as  long,  were  also  plentiful ; 
the  Scotch  and  Scotch-  or  Anglo-Irish,  mostly 
Presbyterians,  came  next  in  point  of  numbers  ; 
the  English,  both  of  Old  and  New  England, 
next ;  there  were  large  bodies  of  Germans  ; 
and  there  were  also  settlements  of  Gaelic 
Highlanders,  and  some  Welsh,  Scandina 
vians,  etc.  Just  prior  to  the  Revolution  there 
were  in  New  York  city  two  Episcopalian 
churches,  three  Dutch  Reformed,  three  Pres 
byterian  (Scotch  and  Irish),  one  French,  two 
German  (one  Lutheran  and  one  Calvinistic,  al 
lied  to  the  Dutch  Reformed)  ;  as  well  as  places 
of  worship  for  the  then  insignificant  religious 
bodies  of  the  Methodists,  Baptists  (largely 
Welsh),  Moravians  (German),  Quakers  and 
Jews.  There  was  no  Roman  Catholic  church 
until  after  the  Revolution  ;  in  fact  before  that 
date  there  were  hardly  any  Roman  Catholics 
in  the  colonies,  except  in  Maryland  and  Penn 
sylvania,  and  in  New  York  they  did  not  ac 
quire  any  strength  until  after  the  War  of  1812. 
This  mixture  of  races  is  very  clearly  shown 


10  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

by  the  ancestry  of  the  half-dozen  great  men 
brought  forth  by  New  York  during  the  Revo 
lution.  Of  these,  one,  Alexander  Hamilton, 
stands  in  the  very  first  class  of  American  states 
men  ;  two  more,  John  Jay  and  Gouverneur 
Morris,  come  close  behind  him ;  the  others, 
Philip  Schnyler,  Robert  Livingston,  and  George 
Clinton,  were  of  lesser,  but  still  of  more  than 
merely  local,  note.  They  were  all  born  and 
bred  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic.  Hamilton's 
father  was  of  Scotch,  and  his  mother  of  French 
Huguenot,  descent ;  Morris  came  on  one  side 
of  English,  and  on  -the  other  of  French  Hu 
guenot,  stock  ;  Jay,  of  French  Huguenot  Mood, 
had  a  mother  who  was  Dutch  ;  Schuyler  was 
purely  Dutch  ;  Livingston  was  Scotch  on  his 
father's,  and  Dutch  on  his  mother's,  side  ;  the 
Clintons  were  of  Anglo-Irish  origin,  but  mar 
ried  into  the  old  Dutch  families.  In  the  same 
way,  it  was  Herkomer,  of  German  parentage, 
who  led  the  New  York  levies,  and  fell  at  their 
head  in  the  bloody  fight  against  the  Tories  and 
Indians  at  Oriskany ;  it  was  the  Irishman 
Montgomery  who  died  leading  the  New  York 
troops  against  Quebec  ;  while  yet  another  of 
the  few  generals  allotted  to  New  York  by  the 
Continental  Congress  was  MacDougall,  of 
Gaelic  Scotch  descent.  The  colony  was  already 
developing  an  ethnic  type  of  its  own,  quite 


EJS    YOUTH:    COLONIAL  NEW  YORK.          11 

distinct  from  that  of  England.  No  American 
state  of  the  present  day,  not  even  Wisconsin 
or  Minnesota,  shows  so  many  and  important 
"foreign,"  or  non-English  elements,  as  New 
York,  and  for  that  matter  Pennsylvania  and 
Delaware,  did  a  century  or  so  ago.  In  fact,  in 
"New  York  the  English  element  in  the  blood 
has  grown  greatly  during  the  past  century, 
owing  to  the  enormous  New  England  immi 
gration  that  took  place  during  its  first  half  ; 
and  the  only  important  addition  to  the  race 
conglomerate  has  been  made  by  the  Celtic  Irish. 
The  New  England  element  in  New  York  in 
1775  was  small  ;md  unimportant;  on  Long 
Island,  where  it  was  largest,  it  was  mainly 
tory  or  neutral ;  in  the  city  itself,  however,  it 
was  aggressively  patriotic. 

Recent  English  writers,  and  some  of  our  own 
as  well,  have  foretold  woe  to  our  nation,  be 
cause  the  blood  of  the  Cavalier  and  the  Round 
head  is  being  diluted  with  that  of  "  German 
boors  and  Irish  cotters."  The  alarm  is  need 
less.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  majority  of  the 
people  of  the  middle  colonies  at  the  time  of 
the  Revolution  were  the  descendants  of  Dutch 
and  German  boors  and  Scotch  and  Irish  cot 
ters  ;  and  in  a  less  degree  the  same  was  true 
of  Georgia  and  the  Carolinas.  Even  in  New 
England,  where  the  English  stock  was  purest, 


12  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

there  was  plenty  of  other  admixture,  and  two 
of  her  most  distinguished  Revolutionary  fami 
lies  bore,  one  the  Huguenot  name  of  Bowdoin, 
and  the  other  the  Irish  name  of  Sullivan. 
Indeed,  from  the  very  outset,  from  the  days  of 
Cromwell,  there  has  been  a  large  Irish  admix 
ture  in  New  England.  When  our  people 
began  their  existence  as  a  nation,  they  already 
differed  in  blood  from  their  ancestral  relatives 
across  the  Atlantic  much  as  the  latter  did 
from  their  forebears  beyond  the  German  Ocean  ; 
and  on  the  whole,  the  immigration  since  has  not 
materially  changed  the  race  strains  in  our  na 
tionality  ;  a  century  back  we  were  even  less 
homogeneous  than  we  are  now.  It  is  no  doubt 
true  that  we  are  in  the  main  an  offshoot  of  the 
English  stem  ;  and  cousins  to  our  kinsfolk  of 
Britain  we  perhaps  may  be;  but  brothers  we 
certainly  are  not. 

v  I^ut  the  process  of  assimilating,  or  as  we 
should  now  say,  of  Americanizing,  all  foreign 
and  non-English  elements  was  going  on  almost 
as  rapidly  a  hundred  years  ago  as  it  is  at  pres 
ent.  A  young  Dutchman  or  Huguenot  felt  it 
necessary,  then,  to  learn  English,  precisely  as 
a  young  Scandinavian  or  German  does  now; 
and  the  churches  of  the  former  at  the  end  of 
the  last  century  were  obliged  to  adopt  English 
as  the  language  for  their  ritual  exactly  as  the 


HIS    YOUTH:   COLONIAL  NEW  YORK.          13 

churches  of  the  latter  do  at  the  end  of  this. 
The  most  stirring,  energetic,  and  progressive 
life  of  the  colony  was  English  ;  and  all  the 
young  fellows  of  push  and  ambition  gradually 
adopted  this  as  their  native  language,  and  then 
refused  to  belong  to  congregations  where  the 
service  was  carried  on  in  a  less  familiar  speech. 
Accordingly  the  Dutch  Reformed  churches 
dwindled  steadily,  while  the  Episcopalian  and 
Presbyterian  swelled  in  the  same  ratio,  until 
in  1764  the  former  gained  a  new  and  lasting 
lease  of  life  by  reluctantly  adopting  the  pre 
vailing  tongue  ;  though  Dutch  was  also  occa 
sionally  used  until  forty  years  later. 

In  fact,  during  the  century  that  elapsed  be 
tween  the  final  British  conquest  of  the  colony 
and  the  Revolution,  the  New  Yorkers  —  Dutch, 
French,  German,  Irish,  and  English  —  had 
become  in  the  main  welded  into  one  people ; 
they  felt  alike  towards  outsiders,  having  chronic 
quarrels  with  the  New  England  States  as  well 
as  with  Great  Britain,  and  showing,  indeed, 
but  little  more  jealous  hostility  towards  the 
latter  than  they  did  towards  Connecticut  and 
New  Hampshire. 

The  religious  differences  no  longer  corre 
sponded  to  the  differences  of  language.  Half 
of  the  adherents  of  the  Episcopalian  Church 
were  of  Dutch  or  Huguenot  blood  ;  the  leading 


14  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

ministers  of  the  Dutch  Church  were  of  Scotch 
parentage  ;  and  the  Presbyterians  included 
some  of  every  race.  The  colonists  were  all 
growing  to  call  themselves  Englishmen  ;  when 
Mayor  Cruger,  and  a  board  of  aldermen  with 
names  equally  Dutch,  signed  the  non-importation 
agreement,  they  prefaced  it  by  stating  that  they 
claimed  "their  rights  as  Englishmen."  But 
though  there  were  no  rivalries  of  race,  there 
were  many  and  bitter  of  class  and  religion,  the 
different  Protestant  sects  hating  one  another 
with  a  virulence  much  surpassing  that  \vith 
which  they  now  regard  even  Catholics. 

The  colony  was  in  government  an  aristocra 
tic  republic,  its  constitution  modeled  on  that  of 
England  and  similar  to  it;  the  power  lay  in 
the  hands  of  certain  old  and  wealthy  families, 
Dutch  and  English,  and  there  was  a  limited 
freehold  suffrage.  The  great  landed  families, 
the  Livingstons,  Van  Rennselaers,  Sclmylers, 
Van  Cortlandts,  Phillipses,  Morrises,  with  their 
huge  manorial  estates,  their  riches,  their  abso 
lute  social  preeminence  and  their  unquestioned 
political  headship,  formed  a  proud,  polished, 
and  powerful  aristocracy,  deep  rooted  in  the 
soil ;  for  over  a  century  their  sway  was  un 
broken,  save  by  contests  between  themselves  or 
with  the  royal  governor,  and  they  furnished 
the  colony  with  military,  political,  and  social 


HIS   YOUTH:   COLONIAL  NEW   YORK.        15 

leaders  for  generation  after  generation.  They 
owned  numerous  black  slaves,  and  lived  in  state 
and  comfort  on  their  broad  acres,  tenant-farmed, 
in  the  great,  roomy  manor-houses,  with  wain 
scoted  walls  and  huge  fireplaces,  and  round 
about  the  quaint  old  gardens,  prim  and  formal 
with  their  box  hedges  and  precise  flower  beds. 
They  answered  closely  to  the  whig  lords  of 
England,  and  indeed  were  often  connected  with 
the  ruling  orders  abroad  by  blood  or  marriage  ; 
as  an  example,  Staats  Long  Morris,  Gouver- 
neur's  elder  brother,  who  remained  a  royalist, 
and  rose  to  be  a  major-general  in  the  British 
army,  married  the  Duchess  of  Gordon.  Some 
of  the  manors  were  so  large  that  they  sent 
representatives  to  the  Albany  legislature,  to 
sit  alongside  of  those  from  the  towns  and 
counties. 

Next  in  importance  to  the  great  manorial 
lords  came  the  rich  merchants  of  New  York  ; 
many  families,  like  the  Livingstons,  the  most 
prominent  of  all,  had  representatives  in  both 
classes.  The  merchants  were  somewhat  of  the 
type  of  Frobisher,  Hawkins,  Klaesoon,  and  other 
old  English  and  Dutch  sea- worthies,  who  were 
equally  keen  as  fighters  and  traders.  They 
were  shrewd,  daring,  and  prosperous  ;  they  were 
often  their  own  ship -masters,  and  during  the 
incessant  wars  against  the  French  and  Spaniards 


16  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

went  into  privateering  ventures  with  even  more 
zest  and  spirit  than  into  peaceful  trading. 
Next  came  the  smaller  landed  proprietors,  who 
also  possessed  considerable  local  influence ;  such 
was  the  family  of  the  Clintons.  The  law,  too, 
was  beginning  to  take  high  rank  as  an  honor 
able  and  influential  profession. 

Most  of  the  gentry  were  Episcopalians,  theirs 
being  practically  the  state  church,  and  very 
influential  and  wealthy ;  some  belonged  to  the 
Calvinistic  bodies,  —  notably  the  Livingstons, 
who  were  in  large  part  Presbyterians,  while  cer 
tain  of  their  number  were  prominent  members 
of  the  Dutch  congregations.  It  was  from  among 
the  gentry  that  the  little  group  of  New  York 
revolutionary  leaders  came ;  men  of  singular 
purity,  courage,  and  ability,  who,  if  they  could 
not  quite  rank  with  the  brilliant  Virginians  of 
that  date,  nevertheless  stood  close  behind, 
alongside  of  the  Massachusetts  men  and  ahead 
of  those  from  any  other  colony ;  that,  too,  it 
must  be  kept  in  mind,  at  a  time  when  New 
York  was  inferior  in  wealth  and  population  to 
Massachusetts,  Pennsylvania,  or  Virginia,  and 
little,  if  at  all,  in  advance  of  Maryland  or  Con 
necticut.  The  great  families  also  furnished  the 
leaders  of  the  loyalists  during  the  war  ;  such 
were  the  De  Lanceys,  whose  influence  firound 
the  mouth  of  the  Hudson  was  second  to  that  of 


ffIS   YOUTH:  COLONIAL  NEW   YORK.         17 

none  others  ;  and  the  Johnsons,  who,  in  man 
sions  that  were  also  castles,  held  half-feudal, 
half-barbaric  sway  over  the  valley  of  the  upper 
Mohawk,  where  they  were  absolute  rulers,  ready 
and  willing  to  wage  war  on  their  own  account, 
relying  on  their  numerous  kinsmen,  their  armed 
negro  slaves,  their  trained  bands  of  Gaelic  re 
tainers,  and  their  hosts  of  savage  allies,  drawn 
from  among  the  dreaded  Iroquois. 

The  bulk  of  the  people  were  small  farmers  in 
the  country,  tradesmen  and  mechanics  in  the 
towns.  They  were  for  the  most  part  members 
of  some  of  the  Calvinistic  churches,  the  great 
majority  of  the  whole  population  belonging  to 
the  Presbyterian  and  Dutch  Reformed  congre 
gations.  The  farmers  were  thrifty,  set  in  their 
ways,  and  obstinate ;  the  townsmen  thrifty  also, 
but  restless  and  turbulent.  Both  farmers  and 
townsmen  were  thoroughly  independent  and 
self-respecting,  and  were  gradually  getting  more 
and  more  political  power.  They  had  always 
stood  tenaciously  by  their  rights,  from  the  days 
of  the  early  Stuart  governors,  who  had  com 
plained  loudly  of  the  "  Dutch  Republicans." 
But  they  were  narrow,  jealous  of  each  other,  as 
well  as  of  outsiders,  and  slow  to  act  together. 

The  political  struggles  were  very  bitter. 
The  great  families,  under  whose  banners  they 
were  carried  on,  though  all  intermarried,  were 
2 


18  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

divided  by  keen  rivalries  into  opposing  camps. 
Yet  they  joined  in  dreading  too  great  an  ex 
tension  of  democracy ;  and  in  return  were  sus 
pected  by  the  masses,  who  grumblingly  fol 
lowed  their  lead,  of  hostility  to  the  popular 
cause.  The  Episcopalians,  though  greatly  in 
the  minority,  possessed  most  power,  and  ha 
rassed  in  every  way  they  dared  the  dissent 
ing  sects,  especially  the  Presbyterians  —  for 
the  Dutch  Reformed  and  Huguenot  churches 
had  certain  rights  guaranteed  them  by  treaty. 
The  Episcopalian  clergy  were  royalists  to  a 
man,  and  it  was  in  their  congregations  that  the 
main  strength  of  the  Tories  lay,  although  these 
also  contained  many  who  became  the  stanchest 
of  patriots.  King's  College  was  controlled  by 
trustees  of  this  faith.  They  were  busy  trying 
to  turn  it  into  a  diminutive  imitation  of  Ox 
ford,  and  did  their  best  to  make  it,  in  its  own 
small  way,  almost  as  much  a  perverse  miracle 
of  backward  and  invariable  wrong-headedness 
as  was  its  great  model.  Its  president,  when  the 
Revolution  broke  out,  was  a  real  old  wine-bib 
bing  Tory  parson,  devoted  to  every  worn-out 
theory  that  inculcated  humble  obedience  to 
church  and  crown;  and  he  was  most  summarily 
expelled  by  the  mob. 

Some  important  political  consequences  arose 
from  the  fact  that  the  mass  of  the  people  be 
longed  to  some  one  or  other  of  the  branches  of 


HIS  YOUTH:   COLONIAL  NEW  YORK.          19 

the  Calvinistic  faith  —  of  all  faiths  the  most  re 
publican  in  its  tendencies.  They  were  strongly 
inclined  to  put  their  republican  principles  into 
practice  as  well  in  state  as  in  church ;  they 
tended  towards  hostility  to  the  crown,  and  were 
strenuous  in  their  opposition  to  the  extension  of 
the  Episcopal  power,  always  threatened  by 
some  English  statesmen ;  their  cry  was  against 
"the. King  and  the  Bishops."  It  is  worth  not 
ing  that  the  Episcopalian  churches  were  shut 
up  when  the  Revolution  broke  out,  and  were 
reopened  when  the  British  troops  occupied  the 
city.  The  Calvinistic  churches,  on  the  con 
trary,  which  sided  with  the  revolutionists,  were 
shut  when  the  British  came  into  New  York, 
were  plundered  by  the  troops,  and  were  not  re 
opened  until  after  the  evacuation. 

Tims  three  parties  developed,  although  the 
third,  destined  to  overwhelm  the  others,  had 
not  yet  come  to  the  front.  The  first  consisted 
of  the  royalists,  or  monarchists,  the  men  who 
believed  that  power  came  from  above,  from  the 
king  and  the  bishops,  and  who  were  aristo 
cratic  in  their  sympathies ;  who  were  Ameri 
cans  only  secondarily,  and  who  stood  by  their 
order  against  their  country.  This  party  con 
tained  many  of  the  great  manorial  families  and 
also  of  the  merchants ;  and  in  certain  places,  as 
in  Staten  Island,  the  east  end  of  Long  Island, 


20  QOUVERNEUR  MORRIB. 

the  upper  valley  of  the  Mohawk,  and  part  of 
Westchester  County,  the  influence  of  the  upper 
classes  combined  with  the  jealousy  and  igno 
rance  of  large  sections  of  the  lower,  to  give  it  a 
clear  majority  of  the  whole  population.  The 
second  party  was  headed  by  the  great  families 
of  Whig  or  liberal  sympathies,  who,  when  the 
split  came,  stood  by  their  country,  although 
only  very  moderate  republicans;  and  it  held 
also  in  its  ranks  the  mass  of  moderate  men,  who 
wished  freedom,  were  resolute  in  defense  of 
their  rights,  and  had  republican  leanings,  but 
who  also  appreciated  the  good  in  the  system 
under  which  they  were  living.  Finally  came 
the  extremists,  the  men  of  strong  republican 
tendencies,  whose  delight  it  was  to  toast  Pym, 
Hampden,  and  the  regicides.  These  were  led  by 
the  agitators  in  the  towns,  and  were  energetic 
and  active,  but  were  unable  to  effect  anything 
until  the  blunders  of  the  British  ministers  threw 
the  moderate  men  over  to  their  side.  They  fur 
nished  none  of  the  greater  revolutionary  lead 
ers  in  New  York,  though  the  Clintons  came 
near  the  line  that  divided  them  from  the  second 
party. 

The  last  political  contest  carried  on  under 
the  crown  occurred  in  1768,  the  year  in  which 
Morris  graduated  from  college,  when  the  last 
colonial  legislature  was  elected.  It  reminds 


HIS   YOUTH:  COLONIAL  NEW  YORK.        21 

us  of  our  own  days  when  we  read  of  the  fears 
entertained  of  the  solid  German  vote,  and  of 
the  hostility  to  the  Irish,  who  were  hated  and 
sneered  at  as  "  beggars  "  by  the  English  party 
and  the  rich  Episcopalians.  The  Irish  of  those 
days,  however,  were  Presbyterians,  and  in  blood 
more  English  than  Gaelic.  St.  Patrick's  Day 
was  celebrated  then  as  now,  by  public  proces 
sions,  as  well  as  otherwise  ;  but  when,  for  in 
stance,  on  March  17,  1766,  the  Irish  residents 
of  New  York  celebrated  the  day  by  a  dinner, 
they  gave  certain  toasts  that  would  sound 
strangely  in  the  ears  of  Milesian  patriots  of  the 
present  time,  for  they  included  "  The  Protes 
tant  Interest,"  and  "  King  William,  of  glorious, 
pious,  and  immortal  memory." 

The  royalist  or  conservative  side  in  this  con 
test  in  1768  was  led  by  the  De  Lanceys,  their 
main  support  being  drawn  from  among  the 
Episcopalians,  and  most  of  the  larger  mer 
chants  helping  them.  The  Whigs,  including 
those  with  republican  leanings,  followed  the 
Livingstons,  and  were  drawn  mainly  from  the 
Presbyterian  and  other  Calvinistic  congrega 
tions.  The  moderate  men  on  this  occasion 
went  with  the  De  Lanceys,  and  gave  them  the 
victory.  In  consequence  the  colonial  legislature 
was  conservative  and  loyal  in  tone,  and  anti- 
republican,  although  not  ultra-tory,  as  a  whole ; 


22  GODVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

and  thus  when  the  revolutionary  outbreak  began 
it  went  much  slower  than  was  satisfactory  to  the 
patriot  party,  and  its  actions  were  finally  set 
aside  by  the  people. 

When  Morris  graduated  from  college,  as 
mentioned  above,  he  was  not  yet  seventeen 
years  old.  His  college  career  was  like  that  of 
any  other  bright,  quick  boy,  without  over  much 
industry  or  a  passion  for  learning.  For  mat  he 
matics  he  possessed  a  genuine  taste ;  he  was  par 
ticularly  fond  of  Shakespeare  ;  and  even  thus 
early  he  showed  great  skill  in  discussion  and 
much  power  of  argument.  He  made  the  ora 
tion,  or  graduating  address,  of  his  class,  choosing 
for  the  subject  "Wit  and  Beauty  ;  "  it  was  by 
no  means  a  noteworthy  effort,  and  was  couched 
in  the  dreadful  Johnsonian  English  of  the 
period.  A  little  later,  when  he  took  his  mas 
ter's  degree,  he  again  delivered  an  oration, — 
this  time  on  "Love."  In  point  of  style  this 
second  speech  was  as  bad  as  the  first,  disfigured 
by  cumbrous  Latinisms  and  a  hopeless  use  of 
the  superlative;  but  there  were  one  or  two 
good  ideas  in  it. 

As  soon  as  he  graduated,  he  set  to  work  to 
study  law,  deciding  on  this  profession  at  once 
as  being  best  suited  for  an  active,  hopeful,  am 
bitious  young  man  of  his  social  standing  and 
small  fortune,  who  was  perfectly  self-confident 


HIS   YOUTH:  COLONIAL  NEW   YORK.          23 

and  conscious  of  his  own  powers.  He  soon 
became  interested  in  bis  studies,  and  followed 
them  with  great  patience,  working  hard  and 
mastering  both  principles  and  details  with  ease. 
He  was  licensed  to  practice  as  an  attorney  in 
1771,  just  three  years  after  another  young  man, 
destined  to  stand  as  his  equal  in  the  list  of  New 
York's  four  or  five  noted  statesmen,  John  Jay, 
had  likewise  been  admitted  to  the  bar  ;  and 
among  the  very  few  cases  in  which  Morris  was 
engaged  of  which  the  record  has  been  kept  is 
one  concerning  a  contested  election,  in  which 
he  was  pitted  against  Jay,  and  bore  himself 
well. 

Before  this,  and  while  not  yet  of  age,  he  had 
already  begun  to  play  a  part  in  public  affairs. 
The  colony  had  been  run  in  debt  during  the 
French  and  Indian  wars,  and  a  bill  was  brought 
forward  in  the  New  York  Assembly  to  provide 
for  this  by  raising  money  through  the  issue  of 
interest-bearing  bills  of  credit.  The  people,  in 
dividually,  were  largely  in  debt,  and  hailed  the 
proposal  with  much  satisfaction,  on  the  theory 
that  it  would  "  make  money  more  plenty  ;  " 
our  revolutionary  forefathers  being  unfortu 
nately  not  much  wiser  or  more  honest  in  their 
ways  of  looking  at  the  public  finances  than  we 
ourselves,  in  spite  of  our  state  repudiators,  na 
tional  greenbackers,  and  dishonest  silver  men. 


24  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

Morris  attacked  the  bill  very  forcibly,  and 
with  good  effect,  opposing  any  issue  of  paper 
money,  which  could  bring  no  absolute  relief, 
but  merely  a  worse  catastrophe  of  bankruptcy 
in  the  end;  he  pointed  out  that  it  was  nothing 
but  a  mischievous  pretense  for  putting  off  the 
date  of  a  payment  that  would  have  to  be  met 
anyhow,  and  that  ought  rather  to  be  met  at  once 
with  honest  money  gathered  from  the  resources 
of  the  province.  He  showed  the  bad  effects 
such  a  system  of  artificial  credit  would  have  on 
private  individuals^the  farmers  and  tradesmen, 
by  encouraging  them  to  speculate  and  go  deeper 
into  debt;  and  he  criticised  unsparingly  the 
attitude  of  the  majority  of  his  fellow-citizens 
in  wishing  such  a  measure  of  relief,  not  only 
for  their  short-sighted  folly,  but  also  for  their 
criminal  and  selfish  dishonesty  in  trying  to 
procure  a  temporary  benefit  for  themselves  at 
the  lasting  expense  of  the  community  ;  finally 
he  strongly  advised  them  to  bear  with  patience 
small  evils  in  the  present  rather  than  to  remedy 
them  by  inflicting  infinitely  greater  ones  on 
themselves  and  their  descendants  in  the  future. 

At  the  law  he  did  very  well,  having  the 
advantages  of  his  family  name,  and  of  his  own 
fine  personal  appearance.  He  was  utterly 
devoid  of  embarrassment,  and  his  perfect  self- 
assurance  and  freedom  from  any  timidity  or 


HIS   YOUTH:   COLONIAL  NEW   YORK.         25 

sense  of  inferiority  left  his  manner  without  the 
least  tinge  of  awkwardness,  and  gave  clear 
ground  for  his  talents  and  ambition  to  make 
their  mark. 

However,  hardworking  and  devoted  to  his 
profession  though  he  was-,  he  had  the  true 
family  restlessness  and  craving  for  excitement, 
and  soon  after  he  was  admitted  to  the  bar,  he 
began  to  long  for  foreign  travel,  as  was  natural 
enough  in  a  young  provincial  gentleman  of  bis 
breeding  and  education.  In  a  letter  to  an 
old  friend  (William  Smith,  a  man  of  learning, 
the  historian  of  the  colony,  and  afterwards  its 
chief  justice),  in  whose  office  he  had  studied 
law,  he  asks  advice  in  the  matter,  and  gives 
as  bis  reasons  for  wishing  to  make  tbe  trip 
the  desire  "  to  form  my  manners  and  address 
by  the  example  of  the  truly  polite,  to  rub  off 
in  the  gay  circle  a  few  of  the  many  barbarisms 
which  characterize  a  provincial  education,  and 
to  curb  the  vain  self-sufficiency  which  arises 
from  comparing  ourselves  with  companions  who 
are  inferior  to  us."  He  then  anticipates  the 
objections  that  may  be  made  on  the  score  of 
the  temptations  to  which  he  will  be  exposed 
by  saying :  "  If  it  be  allowed  that  I  have  a 
taste  for  pleasure,  it  may  naturally  follow  that 
I  shall  avoid  those  low  pleasures  which  abound 
on  this  as  well  as  on  the  other  side  of  the  At- 


26  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

lantic.  As  for  these  poignant  joys  which  are 
the  lot  of  the  affluent,  like  Tantalus  1  may  grasp 
at  them,  but  they  will  certainly  be  out  of  my 
reach."  In  this  last  sentence  he  touches  on  his 
narrow  means;  and  it  was  on  this  point  that 
his  old  preceptor  harped  in  making  his  reply, 
cunningly  instilling  into  his  mind  the  danger 
of  neglecting  his  business,  and  bringing  up  the 
appalling  example  of  an  "  Uncle  Robin,"  who, 
having  made  three  pleasure  trips  to  England, 
"  began  to  figure  with  thirty  thousand  pounds, 
and  did  not  leave  five  thousand ;  "  going  on 
"  What !  '  Virtus  post  nummos  f  Curse  on  in 
glorious  wealth  ?  '  Spare  your  indignation.  I, 
too,  detest  the  ignorant  miser  ;  but  both  virtue 
and  ambition  abhor  poverty,  or  they  are  mad. 
Rather  imitate  your  grandfather  [who  had 
stayed  in  America  and  prospered]  than  your 
uncle." 

The  advice  may  have  had  its  effect ;  at  any 
rate  Morris  stayed  at  home,  and,  with  an  occa 
sional  trip  to  Philadelphia,  got  all  he  could  out 
of  the  society  of  New  York,  which,  little  pro 
vincial  seaport  though  it  was,  was  yet  a  gay 
place,  gayer  then  than  any  other  American  city 
save  Charleston,  the  society  consisting  of  the 
higher  crown  officials,  the  rich  merchants,  and 
the  great  landed  proprietors.  Into  this  society 
Morris,  a  handsome,  high-bred  young  fellow, 


HIS   YOUTH:   COLONIAL  NEW   YORK.         27 

of  easy  manners  and  far  from  puritanical 
morals,  plunged  with  a  will,  his  caustic  wit 
and  rather  brusque  self-assertion  making  him 
both  admired  and  feared.  He  enjoyed  it  all 
to  the  full,  and  in  his  bright,  chatty  letters  to 
his  friends  pictures  himself  as  working  hard, 
but  gay  enough  also  :  "  up  all  night  —  balls, 
concerts,  assemblies  —  all  of  us  mad  in  the 
pursuit  of  pleasure." 

But  the  Revolution  was  at  hand ;  and  both 
pleasure  and  office-work  had  to  give  way  to 
something  more  important. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE   OUTBREAK    OF    THE    REVOLUTION :    MOR 
RIS   IN  THE  PROVINCIAL  CONGRESS. 

DURING  the  years  immediately  preceding 
the  outbreak  of  the  Revolution,  almost  all 
people  were  utterly  in  the  dark  as  to  what 
"their  future  conduct  should  be.  No  respon 
sible  leader  thought  seriously  of  separation 
from  the  mother  country,  and  the  bulk  of  the 
population  were  still  *  farther  from*  supposing 
such  an  event  to  be  possible.  Indeed  it  must 
be  remembered  that  all  through  the  Revolu 
tionary  War  not  only  was  there  a  minority 
actively  favprable  to  the  royal  cause,  but  there 
was  also  a  minority  —  so  large  that,  added  to 
the  preceding,  it  has  been  doubted  whether  it 
was  not  a  majority  —  that  was  but  lukewarm  in 
its  devotion  to  the  American  side,  and  was  kept- 
even  moderately  patriotic  almost  as  much  by 
the  excesses  of  the  British  troops  and  blunders 
of  the  British  generals  and  ministers,  as  by  the 
valor  of  our  own  soldiers,  or  the  skill  of  our 
own  statesmen.  We  can  now  see  clearly  that 


THE  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  REVOLUTION.       29 

the  right  of 'the  matter  was  with  the  patriotic 
party  ;  and  it  was  a  great  thing  for  the  whole 
English-speaking*  race  that  that  section  of  it 
which  was  destined  to  be  the  most  numerous 
and  powerful  should  not  be  cramped  and  fet 
tered  by  the  peculiarly  galling  ^  shackles  of 
provincial  dependency  ;  but  all  this  was  not 
by  any  means  so  clear  then  as  now,  and  some 
of  our  best  citizens  thought  themselves  in  honor 
bound  to  take  the  opposite  side,  —  though  of  ne 
cessity  those  among  our  most  high-minded  men, 
who  were  also  far-sighted  enough  to  see  the  true 
nature  of  the  struggle,  went  with  the  patriots. 

That  the  loyalists  of  1776  were  wrong  is 
beyond  question ;  but  it  is  equally  beyond 
question  that  they  had  greater  grounds  for 
believing  themselves  right  than  had  the  men 
who  tried  to  break  up  the  Union  three  quarters 
of  a  century  later.  «•  That  these  latter  had  the 
most  hearty  faith  in  the  justice  of  their  cause 
need  not  be  doubted  ;  and  he  is  but  a  poor 
American  whose  veins  do  not  thrill  with  pride 
as  he  reads  of  the  deeds  of  desperate  prowess 
done  by  the  confederate  armies ;  but  it  is 
most  unfair  to  brand  the  "  tory  "  of  1776  with 
a  shame  no  longer  felt  to  pertain  to  the  "  rebel" 
of  1860.  Still,  there  is  no  doubt,  not  only  that 
the  patriots  were  right,  but  also  that  they  were 
as  a  whole  superior  to  the  tories ;  they  were 


30  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

the  men  with  a  high  ideal  of  freedom,  too  fond 
of  liberty,  and  too  self-respecting,  to  submit  to 
foreign  rule  ;  they  included  the  mass  of  hard 
working,  orderly,  and  yet  high-spirited  yeomen 
and  freeholders.  The  tories  included  those  of 
the  gentry  who  were  devoted  to  aristocratic 
principles  ;  the  large  class  of  timid  and  pros 
perous  people  (like  the  Pennsylvania  Quak 
ers)  ;  the  many  who  feared  above  all  things 
disorder  ;  also  the  very  lowest  sections  of  the 
community,  the  lazy,  thriftless,  and  vicious, 
who  hated  their  progressive  neighbors,  as  in 
the  Carolinas ;  and  finally  the  men  who  \v^re 
really  principled  in  favor  of  a  kingly  govern 
ment.  vK 

Morris  was  at  first  no  more  sure  of  his  sound 
ings  than  were  the  rest  of  his  companions. 
He  was  a  gentleman  of  old  family,  and  be 
longed  to  the  ruling  Episcopalian  Church.  He 
was  no  friend  to  tyranny,  and  he  was  a 
thorough  American,  but  he  had  little  faith  in 
extreme  democracy.  The  Revolution  had  two 
sides  ;  in  the  northern  Atlantic  States  at  least  it 
was  almost  as  much  an  uprising  of  democracy 
against  aristocracy  as  it  was  a  contest  between 
America  and  England  ;  and  the  patriotic  Amer 
icans,  who  nevertheless  distrusted  ultra-demo 
cratic  ideas,  suffered  many  misgivings  when 
they  let  their  love  for  their  country  overcome 


THE   OUTBREAK  OF  THE  REVOLUTION.       31 

their  pride  of  caste.  The  "  Sons  of  Liberty," 
a  semi-secret  society  originating  among  the 
merchants,  and  very  powerful  in  bringing  dis 
content  to  a  head,  now  showed  signs  of  degen 
erating  into  a  mob  ;  and  for  mobs  Morris,  like 
other  clear-headed  men,  felt  the  most  profound 
dislike  and  contempt. 

Throughout  1774  he  took  little  part  in  the 
various  commotions,  which  kept  getting  more 
and  more  violent.  He  was  angered  by  the 
English  encroachments,  and  yet  was  by  no  means 
pleased  with  the  measures  taken  to  repel  them. 
Tta  gentry,  and  the  moderate  men  generally, 
were  at  their  wits'  ends  in  trying  to  lead  the 
rest  of  the  people,  and  were  being  pushed  on 
farther  and  farther  all  the  time  ;  the  leadership, 
even  of  the  revolutionary  party,  still  rested  in 
their  hands;  but  it  grew  continually  less  abso 
lute.  Said  Morris :  u  The  spirit  of  the  English 
constitution  has  yet  a  little  influence  left,  and 
but  a  little.  The  remains  of  it,  however,  will 
give  the  wealthy  people  a  superiority  this  time ; 
but,  would  they  secure  it,  they  must  banish  all 
schoolmasters  and  confine  all  knowledge  to 
themselves.  .  .  .  The  gentry  begin  to  fear  this. 
Their  committee  will  be  appointed;  they  will 
deceive  the  people,  and  again  forfeit  a  share  of 
their  confidence.  And  if  these  instances  of 
what  with  one  side  is  policy,  with  the  other  per- 


32  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

fidy,  shall  continue  to  increase  and  become  more 
frequent,  farewell,  aristocracy*  I  see,  and  see 
it  with  fear  and  trembling,  that  if  the  dispute 
with  Britain  continues,  we  shall  be  under  the 
worst  of  all  possible  dominions ;  we  shall  be 
under  the  dominion  of  a  riotous  mob.  It  is 
the  interest  of  all  men,  therefore,  to  seek  for 
reunion  with  the  parent  state."  He  then  goes 
on  to  discuss  the  terms  which  will  make  this 
reunion  possible,  and  evidently  draws  ideas 
from  sources  as  diverse  as  Rousseau  and  Pitt, 
stating,  as  preliminaries,  that  when  men  come 
together  in  society,  there  must  be  an  imj^ed 
contract  that  "a  part  of  their  freedom  shall  be 
given  up  for  the  security  of  the  remainder. 
But  what  part?  The  answer  is  plain.  The 
least  possible,  considering  the  circumstances 
of  the  society,  which  constitute  what  may  be 
called  its  political  necessity  ;  "  and  again  :  i4  In 
every  society  the  members  have  a  right  to  the 
utmost  liberty  that  can  be  enjoyed  consistent 
with  the  general  safety  ;  "  while  he  proposes 
the  rather  wild  remedy  of  divorcing  the  taxing 
and  the  governing  powers,  giving  America  the 
right  to  lay  her  own  imposts,  and  regulate  her 
internal  police,  and  reserving  to  Great  Britain 
that  to  regulate  the  trade  for  the  entire  empire. 
Naturally  there  was  no  hope  of  any  com 
promise  of  this  sort.  The  British  ministry 


THE   OUTBREAK   OF  THE  REVOLUTION.        33 

grew  more  imperious,  and  the  Colonies  more 
defiant.  At  last  the  clash  came,  and  then 
Morris's  thorough  Americanism  and  inborn 
love  of  freedom  and  impatience  of  tyranny  over 
came  any  lingering  class  jealousy,  and  he  cast 
in  his  lot  with  his  countrymen.  Once  in,  he 
was  not  of  the  stuff  to  waver  or  look  back  ;  but 
like  most  other  Americans,  and  like  almost  all 
New  Yorkers,  he  could  not  for  some  little  time 
realize  how  hopeless  it  was  to  try  to  close  the 
breach  with  Great  Britain.  Hostilities  had 
gone  on  for  quite  a  while  before  even  Wash 
ington  could  bring  himself  to  believe  that  a 
lasting  separation  was  inevitable. 

The  Assembly,  elected,  as  shown  in  the  pre 
vious  chapter,  at  a  moment  of  reaction,  was 
royalist  in  tone.  It  contained  several  stanch 
patriots,  but  the  majority,  although  unwilling 
to  back  up  the  British  ministers  in  all  their 
doings,  were  still  more  hostile  to  the  growing 
body  of  republican  revolutionists.  They 
gradually  grew  wholly  out  of  sympathy  with 
the  people  ;  until  the  latter  at  last  gave  up  all 
attempts  to  act  through  their  ordinary  repre 
sentatives,  and  set  about  electing  delegates  who 
should  prove  more  faithful.  Thereupon,  in 
April,  1775,  the  last  colonial  legislature  ad 
journed  for  all  time,  and  was  replaced  by  suc 
cessive  bodies  more  in  touch  with  the  general 


84  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

sentiment  of  New  York ;  that  is,  by  various 
committees,  by  a  convention  to  elect  delegates 
to  the  Continental  Congress,  and  then  by  the 
Provincial  Congress.  The  lists  of  names  in 
these  bodies  show  not  only  how  many  leading 
men  certain  families  contributed,  but  also  how 
mixed  the  lineage  of  such  families  was  ;  for 
among  the  numerous  Jays,  Livingstons,  Lud- 
lows,  Van  Cortlandts,  Roosevelts,  Beekmans, 
and  others  of  Dutch,  English,  and  Huguenot 
ancestry  appear  names  as  distinctly  German, 
Gaelic-Scotch,  and  Irish,  like  Hoffman,  Mul 
ligan,  MacDougall,  Connor.1 

1  The  habit  of  constantly  importing  indentured  Irish  ser 
vants,  as  well  as  German  laborers,  under  contract,  prevailed 
throughout  the  colonies  ;  and  the  number  of  men  thus  im 
ported  was  quite  sufficient  to  form  a  considerable  element  in 
the  population,  and  to  add  a  new,  although  perhaps  not  very 
valuable,  strain  to  our  already  mixed  blood.  In  taking  up  at 
random  the  file  of  the  New  York  Gazette  for  1766,  we  find 
among  the  advertisements  many  offering-  rewards  for  runaway 
servants ;  such  as  "three  pounds  for  the  runaway  servant  Con 
ner  O'Rourke,"  "  ten  pounds  for  the  runaway  Irish  servant, 
Philip  Maginnis,"  "five  pounds  apiece  for  certain  runaway 
German  miners  —  Bruderlein,  Baum,0stmann,  etc.  —  imported 
under  contract ; "  all  this  mixed  in  with  advertisements  of 
rewards  of  about  the  same  money  value  for"  the  mulatto  man 
named  Tom,"  or  the  "  negroes  Nero  and  Pompey."  Still,  in 
speaking  of  the  revolutionary  armies,  the  word  "  Irish  "  must 
almost  always  be  understood  as  meaning  Presbyterian  Irish ; 
the  Catholic  Irish  had  but  little  hand  in  the  war,  and  that  little 
was  limited  to  furnishing  soldiers  to  some  of  the  British 
regiments.  The  Presbyterian  Irish,  however,  in  the  revolu- 


THE   OUTBREAK  OF   THE  REVOLUTION.        35 

To  the  Provincial  Congress,  from  thenceforth 
on  the  regular  governmental  body  of  the  col 
ony,  eighty-one  delegates  were  elected,  includ 
ing  Gouverneur  Morris  from  the  county  of 
Westchester,  and  seventy  were  present  at  the 
first  meeting,  which  took  place  on  May  22  at 
New  York.  The  voting  in  the  Congress  was 
done  by  counties,  each  being  alloted  a  certain 
number  of  votes  roughly  approximating  to  its 
population. 

f  Lexington  had  been  fought,  and  the  war  had 
already  begun  in  Massachusetts  ;  but  in  New 
York,  though  it  was  ablaze  with  sympathy  for 
the  insurgent  New  Englanders,  the  royal  author 
ity  was  still  nominally  unquestioned,  and  there 
had  been  no  collision  with  the  British  troops. 
Few,  if  any,  of  the  people  of  the  colony  as  yet 
aimed  at  more  than  a  redress  of  their  grievances 
and  the  restoration  of  their  rights  and  liberties ; 
they  had  still  no  idea  of  cutting  loose  from 
Great  Britain.  Even  such  an  avowedly  popular 
and  revolutionary  body  as  the  Provincial  Con 
gress  contained  some  few  out  and  out  tories  and 

tionary  armies,  played  a  part  as  manful  and  valiant  as,  and 
even  more  important  than,  that  taken  by  the  Catholic  Irish 
soldiers  who  served  so  bravely  during  the  great  contest  be 
tween  the  North  and  South.  The  few  free  Catholic  Irish 
already  in  America  in  1776  were  for  the  most  part  heartily 
loyal ;  but  they  were  not  numerous  enough  to  be  of  the  least 
consequence. 


36  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

very  many  representatives  of  that  timid,  waver 
ing  class,  which  always  halts  midway  in  any 
course  of  action,  and  is  ever  prone  to  adopt  half- 
measures, —  a  class  which  in  any  crisis  works 
quite  as  much  harm  as  the  actively  vicious,  and 
is  almost  as  much  hated  and  even  more  despised 
by  the  energetic  men  of  strong  convictions.  The 
timid  good  are  never  an  element  of  strength 
in  a  community;  but  they  have  always  been 
well  represented  in  New  York.  During  the 
Revolutionary  War  it  is  not  probable  that 
much  more  than  half  of  her  people  were  ever 
in  really  hearty  and  active  sympathy  with  the 
patriots. 

Morris  at  once  took  a  prominent  place  in  the 
Congress,  and  he  showed  the  national  bent  of- 
his  mind  when  he  seconded  a  resolution  to  the 
effect  that  implicit  obedience  ought  to  be  ren 
dered  to  the  Continental  Congress  in  all  mat 
ters  pertaining  to  the  general  regulation  of  the 
associated  colonies.  The  Assembly,  however, 
was  by  no  means  certain  how  far  it  would  be 
well  to  go ;  and  the  majority  declined  either  to 
approve  or  disapprove  of  the  proceedings  of  the 
late  Continental  Congress.  They  agreed  to  sub 
scribe  to  the  association,  and  recommended  the 
same  course  to  their  constituents  ;  but  added 
that  they  did  not  believe  the  latter  should  be 
forced  to  do  so. 


THE   OUTBREAK  OF  THE  REVOLUTION.       37 

Still,  with  all  their  doubting  and  faint-heart- 
edness,  they  did  set  about  preparing  for  resist 
ance,  and  for  at  least  the  possibility  of  con 
certed  action  with  the  other  colonies.  The  first 
step,  of  course,  was  to  provide  for  raising  funds  ; 
this  was  considered  by  a  committee  of  which 
Morris  was  a  member,  and  he  prepared  and 
drew  up  their  report.  In  the  state  of  public 
feeling,  which  was  nearly  a  unit  against  "  tax 
ation  without  representation  "  abroad,  but  was 
the  reverse  of  unanimous  as  to  submitting  even 
to  taxation  with  representation  at  home,  it  was 
impossible  to  raise  money  by  the  ordinary 
method ;  indeed,  though  the  mass  of  active  pa 
triots  were  willing  to  sacrifice  much,  perhaps 
all,  for  the  cause,  yet  there  were  quite  as  many 
citizens  whose  patriotism  was  lukewarm  enough 
already,  and  could  not  stand  any  additional 
chilling.  Such  people  are  always  willing  to 
face  what  may  be  called  a  staved-off  sacrifice, 
however;  and  promises  to  pay  in  the  future  what 
they  can,  but  will  not  pay  in  the  present,  come 
under  this  head.  Besides,  there  would  have 
been  other  difficulties  in  the  way,  and  in  fact  it 
was  impossible  to  raise  the  amount  needed  by 
direct  taxation.  Accordingly  Morris,  in  his  re 
port  on  behalf  of  the  committee,  recommended 
an  issue  of  paper  money,  and  advised  that  this 
should  not  be  done  by  the  colony  itself,  but  that 


38  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

the  Continental  Congress  should  strike  the 
whole  sum  needed,  and  apportion  the  several 
shares  to  the  different  colonies,  each  of  them 
being  bound  to  discharge  its  own  particular 
part,  and  all  together  to  be  liable  for  whatever 
any  particular  colony  was  unable  to  pay.  This 
plan  secured  a  wide  credit  and  circulation  to 
the  currency,  and,  what  was  equally  desirable, 
created  throughout  the  colonies  a  common  in 
terest  and  common  responsibility  on  a  most  im 
portant  point,  and  greatly  strengthened  the 
bonds  of  their  union.  Morris  even  thus  early 
showed  the  breadth  of  his  far-seeing  patriotism  ; 
he  was  emphatically  an  American  first,  a  New 
Yorker  next ;  the  whole,  tone  of  his  mind  was 
thoroughly  national.  He  took  the  chief  part 
in  urging  the  adoption,  of  the  report,  and  made 
a  most  telling  speech  in  its  favor  before  the 
Assembly,  a  mixed  audience  of  the  prominent 
men  of  the  colony  being  also  present.  The 
report  was  adopted  and  forwarded  to  the  Con 
tinental  Congress  ;  Morris  was  felt  on  all  sides 
to  have  already  taken  his  place  among  the  lead 
ers,  and  from  thenceforth  he  was  placed  on  al 
most  every  important  committee  of  the  Pro 
vincial  Congress. 

This  body  kept  on  its  course,  corresponding 
with  the  other  colonies,  exchanging  thinly 
veiled  threats  with  the  Johnsons,  the  powerful 


THE  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  REVOLUTION.      39 

Tory  over-lords  of  the  upper  Mohawk,  and  pre 
paring  rather  feebly  for  defense,  being  ham 
pered  by  a  total  lack  of  funds  or  credit  until 
the  continental  currency  was  coined.  But  they 
especially  bussed  themselves  with  a  plan  of 
reconciliation  with  England  ;  and  in  fact  were 
so  very  cautious  and  moderate  as  to  be  re 
proached  by  their  chosen  agent  in  England, 
Edmund  Burke,  for  their  "scrupulous  timidity." 
The  Congress,  by  the  way,  showed  some  symp 
toms  of  an  advance  in  toleration,  at  least  so  far 
as  the  Protestant  sects  went ;  for  it  was  opened 
and  closed  by  ministers  of  the  Episcopalian, 
Dutch  Reformed,  Presbyterian,  Baptist,  and 
other  sects,  each  in  turn  ;  but,  as  will  shortly 
be  seen,  the  feeling  against  Catholics  was  quite 
as  narrow-minded  and  intense  as  ever.  This 
was  natural  enough  in  colonial  days,  when 
Protestantism  and  national  patriotism  were 
almost  interchangeable  terms ;  for  the  heredi 
tary  and  embittered  foes  of  the  Americans,  the 
French  and  Spaniards,  were  all  Catholics,  and 
even  many  of  the  Indians  were  of  the  same 
faith  ;  and  undoubtedly  the  wonderful  increase 
in  the  spirit  of  tolerance  shown  after  the  Revo 
lution  was  due  in  part  to  the  change  of  the 
Catholic  French  into  our  allies,  and  of  the  Pro 
testant  English  into  our  most  active  foes.  It 
must  be  remembered,  however,  that  the  Catholic 


40  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

gentry  of  Maryland  played  the  same  part  in 
the  Revolution  that  their  Protestant  neighbors 
did.  One  of  the  famous  Carroll  family  was 
among  the  signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence  ;  and  on  the  other  hand,  one  of  the 
Cliftons  was  a  noted  loyalist  leader. 

Morris  took  a  prominent  part,  both  in  and 
out  of  committee,  in  trying  to  shape  the  plan 
of  reconciliation,  although  utterly  disapprov 
ing  of  many  of  the  ways  in  which  the  subject 
was  handled;  for  he  had  all  the  contempt 
natural  to  most  young  men  of  brains,  decision, 
and  fiery  temper,  for  his  timid,  short-sighted, 
and  prolix  colleagues.  The  report  was  not  all 
to  his  taste  in  the  final  shape  in  which  it  was 
adopted.  It  consisted  of  a  series  of  articles 
recommending  the  repeal  of  the  obnoxious 
statutes  of  the  Imperial  Parliament,  .the  reg 
ulation  of  trade  for  the  benefit  of  the  whole 
empire,  the  establishment  of  triennial  colonial 
legislatures,  and  also  asserting  the  right  of  the 
colonies  to  manage  their  internal  polity  to 
suit  themselves,  and  their  willingness  to  do 
their  part,  according  to  their  capacities,  for  the 
general  defense  of  the  empire.  The  eighth  ar 
ticle  contained  a  denial  of  the  right  of  "  Great 
Britain,  or  any  other  earthly  legislature  or 
tribunal,  to  interfere  in  the  ecclesiastical  or 
religious  concerns  of  the  colonies,"  together 


UNIVERSJ1 

THE  OUTBREAK    OF  TffE  US  VOLUTION.      41 


with  a44 protest  against  the  indulgence  and  es 
tablishment  of  popery  all  along  their  interior 
confines ; "  this  being  called  forth  by  what  was 
known  as  the  "  Quebec  Bill,"  whereby  the 
British  Parliament  had  recently  granted  extraor 
dinary  powers  and  privileges  to  the  Canadian 
clergy,  with  the  obvious  purpose  of  conciliating 
that  powerful  priesthood,  and  thereby  convert 
ing  —  as  was  actually  done  —  the  recently  con 
quered  French  of  the  St.  Lawrence  valley  into 
efficient  allies  of  the  British  government  against 
the  old  Protestant  colonies. 

This  eighth  article  was  ridiculous,  and  was 
especially  objected  to  by  Morris.  In  one  of  his 
vigorous,  deliciously  fresh,  and  humorous  letters, 
dated  June  30,  1775,  and  addressed  to  John 
Jay,  then  in  the  Continental  Congress,  he 
writes  :  — 

The  foolish  religious  business  I  opposed  until  I  was 
weary ;  it  was  carried  by  a  very  small  majority,  and 
my  dissent  entered.  .  .  .  The  article  about  religion 
is  most  arrant  nonsense,  and  would  do  as  well  in  a 
high  Dutch  Bible  as  the  place  it  now  stands  in. 

I  drew  a  long  report  for  our  committee,  to  which 
they  could  make  no  objections  excepting  that  none  of 
them  could  understand  it.  ...  I  was  pleased  at  the 
rejection,  because,  as  I  observed  to  you  before,  I  think 
the  question  ought  to  be  simplified. 

I  address  this  letter  to  you,  but  I  shall  be  glad  [if] 


42  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

you  will  read  it  to  Livingstone,  for  I  intend  it  for 
both  of  you ;  make  my  compliments  to  him,  and  tell 
him  that  I  shall  write  to  him  when  I  have  time  to 
write  a  good  letter —  this  is  a  damned  bad  one,  and 
would  not  exist,  if  I  did  not  think  it  a  duty  to  my 
self  to  show  my  friends  that  I  had  no  hand  in  that 
foolish  religious  business,  I  am,  as  you  well  know, 
your  friend,  etc. 

Morris  did  not  believe  in  a  colonial  assem 
bly  making  overtures  for  a  reconciliation,  as  he 
thought  this  was  the  province  of  the  Continen 
tal  Congress.  The  majority  was  against  him, 
but  he  was  a  clever  politician  and  parliamen 
tary  tactician,  as  well  as  a  great  statesman,  and 
he  fairly  outwitted  and  hoodwinked  his  oppo 
nents,  persuading  them  finally  to  adopt  the  re 
port  in  the  form  of  a  mere  expression  of  opinions 
to  be  sent  to  their  congressional  delegates,  with 
a  prayer  that  the  latter  would  "  use  every  effort 
for  the  compromising  of  this  unnatural  quarrel 
between  the  parent  and  child."  In  this  shape  it 
was  forwarded  to  the  delegates,  who  answered 
that  they  would  do  all  in  their  power  to  com 
promise  the  quarrel,  and  added  a  postscript, 
written  by  Jay  himself,  to  the  effect  that  they 
deemed  it  better  not  to  make  any  mention  of 
the  religious  article  before  the  Congress,  as 
they  thought  it  wise  to  bury  "  all  disputes  on 
ecclesiastical  points,  which  have  for  ages  had 


THE   OUTBREAK  OF  THE  REVOLUTION.      43 

no  other  tendency  than  that  of  banishing  peace 
and  charity  from  the  world." 

While  all  this  was  pending,  and  though 
Bunker  Hill  had  been  fought,  and  the  war  was 
in  full  progress  round  Boston,  New  York  yet 
maintained  what  might  almost  be  described  as 
an  attitude  of  armed  neutrality.  The  city  was 
so  exposed  to  the  British  war-ships  in  the  bay, 
and  the  surrounding  population  was  so  doubt 
ful,  that  the  patriot  party  dared  not  take  the 
deciding  steps,  especially  as  so  many  of  its 
members  still  clung  to  the  hope  of  a  peaceful 
settlement.  Morris  announced  frankly  that  he 
did  not  believe  in  breaking  the  peace  until  they 
were  prepared  to  take  the  consequences.  In 
deed,  when  the  few  British  troops  left  the  city  to 
join  the  garrison  in  Boston,  he  strongly  opposed 
the  action  of  the  Sons  of  Liberty,  who  gathered 
hastily  together,  and  took  away  the  cartloads 
of  arms  and  ammunition  that  the  soldiers  were 
taking  with  them.  The  Congress,  to  their 
honor,  discouraged,  to  the  best  of  their  power, 
the  rioting  and  mobbing  of  Tories  in  the  city. 

In  fact,  New  York's  position  was  somewhat 
like  that  of  Kentucky  at  the  outbreak  of  the 
Civil  War.  Her  backwardness  in  definitely 
throwing  in  her  lot  with  the  revolutionists 
was  clearly  brought  out  by  a  rather  ludicrous 
incident.  General  Washington,  on  his  way 


44  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

to  take  command  of  the  continental  army 
round  Boston,  passed  through  New  York  the 
same  day  the  royal  governor,  Tryon,  arrived 
by  sea,  and  the  authorities  were  cast  into  a 
great  quandary  as  to  how  they  should  treat  two 
such  kings  of  Brentford  when  the  one  rose  was 
so  small.  Finally  they  compromised  by  send 
ing  a  guard  of  honor  to  attend  each;  Mont 
gomery  and  Morris,  as  delegates  from  the 
Assembly,  received  Washington  and  brought 
him  before  that  body,  which  addressed  him  in 
terms  of  cordial  congratulation,  but  ended  with 
a  noteworthy  phrase,  —  that  "  when  the  con 
test  should  be  decided  by  an  accommodation 
with  the  mother  country,  he  should  deliver  up 
the  important  deposit  that  had  been  confided 
to  his  hands." 

These  words  give  us  the  key  to  the  situation. 
Even  the  patriots  of  the  colony  could  not  re 
alize  that  there  was  no  hope  of  an  "accommo 
dation  "  ;  and  they  were  hampered  at  every 
step  by  the  fear  of  the  British  frigates,  and  of 
the  numerous  Tories.  The  latter  were  very  bold 
and  defiant;  when  Congress  tried  to  disarm 
them,  they  banded  themselves  together,  bade 
the  authorities  defiance,  and  plainly  held  the 
upper  land  on  Staten  Island  and  in  Queens 
County.  New  York  furnished  many  excellent 
soldiers  to  the  royal  armies  during  the  war,  and 


THE   OUTBREAK  OF  THE  REVOLUTION.      45 

from  among  her  gentry  came  the  most  famous 
of  the  Tory  leaders,  —  such  as  Johnson  and 
De  Lancey,  whose  prowess  was  felt  by  the  hap 
less  people  of  their  own  native  province ;  De 
Peyster,  who  was  Ferguson's  second  in  command 
at  King's  Mountain  ;  and  Cruger,  who,  in  the 
Carolinas,  inflicted  a  check  upon  Greene  him 
self.  The  Tories  were  helped  also  by  the  jeal 
ousy  felt  towards  some  of  the  other  colonies, 
especially  Connecticut,  whose  people  took  the 
worst  possible  course  for  the  patriot  side  by 
threatening  to  "  crush  down  "  New  York,  and 
by  finally  furnishing  an  armed  and  mounted 
mob  which  rode  suddenly  into  the  city,  and 
wrecked  the  office  of  an  obnoxious  loyalist 
printer  named  Rivington.  This  last  proceed 
ing  caused  great  indignation,  and  nearly  made 
a  split  in  the  revolutionary  camp. 

New  York  had  thus  some  cause  for  her  in 
action  ;  nevertheless,  her  lack  of  boldness  and 
decision  were  not  creditable  to  her,  and  she  laid 
herself  open  to  just  reproaches.  Nor  can 
Morris  himself  be  altogether  freed  from  the. 
charge  of  having  clung  too  long  to  the  hope 
of  a  reconciliation  and  to  a  policy  of  half 
measures.  He  was  at  that  time  chairman  of 
a  legislative  committee  which  denounced  any 
projected  invasion  of  Canada  (therein,  how 
ever,  only  following  the  example  of  the  Con- 


46  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

tinental  Congress),  and  refused  to  allow  Ethan 
Allen  to  undertake  one,  as  that  adventurous 
partisan  chieftain  requested.  But  Morris  was 
too  clear-sighted  to  occupy  a  doubtful  position 
long  ;  and  he  now  began  to  see  things  clearly 
as  they  were,  and  to  push  his  slower  or  more 
timid  associates  forward  along  the  path  which 
they  had  set  out  to  tread.  He  was  instrumen 
tal  in  getting  the  militia  into  somewhat  better 
shape ;  and,  as  it  was  found  impossible  to  get 
enough  continental  money,  a  colonial  paper 
currency  was  issued.  In  spite  of  the  quarrel 
with  Connecticut,  a  force  from  that  province 
moved  in  to  take  part  in  the  defense  of  New 
York. 

Yet,  in  the  main,  the  policy  of  the  New  York 
Congress  still  continued  both  weak  and  change 
able,  and  no  improvement  was  effected  when  it 
was  dissolved  and  a  second  elected.  To  this 
body  the  loyalist  counties  of  Richmond  and 
Queens  refused  to  return  delegates,  and  through 
out  the  colony  affairs  grew  more  disorderly,  and 
the  administration  of  justice  came  nearly  to  a 
standstill.  Finding  that  the  local  congress 
seemed  likely  to  remain  unable  to  make  up 
its  mind  how  to  act,  the  continental  leaders  at 
last  took  matters  into  their  own  hands,  and 
marched  a  force  into  New  York  city  early  in 
February,  1776.  This  had  a  most  bracing 


THE  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  REVOLUTION.      47 

effect  upon  the  provincial  authorities  ;  yet  they 
still  continued  to  allow  the  British  war-ships  in 
the  bay  to  be  supplied  with  provisions,  nor  was 
this  attitude  altered  until  in  April  Washington 
arrived  with  the  main  continental  army.  He 
at  once  insisted  that  a  final  break  should  be 
made ;  and  about  the  same  time  the  third  Pro 
vincial  Congress  was  elected.  Morris,  again 
returned  for  Westchester,  headed  the  bolder 
spirits,  who  had  now  decided  that  the  time  had 
come  to  force  their  associates  out  of  their  wa 
vering  course,  and  to  make  them  definitely  cast 
in  their  lot  with  their  fellow  Americans.  Things 
had  come  to  a  point  which  made  a  decision 
necessary ;  the  gathering  of  the  continental 
forces  on  Manhattan  Island  and  the  threaten 
ing  attitude  of  the  British  fleet  and  army  made 
it  impossible  for  even  the  most  timid  to  keep 
on  lingering  in  a  state  of  uncertainty.  So  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  was  ratified,  and 
a  state  constitution  organized  ;  then  the  die  was 
cast,  and  thereafter  New  York  manfully  stood 
by  the  result  of  the  throw. 

The  two  Provincial  Congresses  that  decided 
on  this  course  held  their  sessions  in  a  time  of 
the  greatest  tumult,  when  New  York  was 
threatened  hourly  by  the  British ;  and  long 
before  their  work  was  ended  they  had  hastily  to 
leave  the  city.  Before  describing  what  they 


48 


GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 


did,  a  glance  should  be  taken  at  the  circum 
stances  under  which  it  was  done. 

The  peaceable  citizens,  especially  those  with 
any  property,  gradually  left  New  York  ;  and 
it  remained  in  possession  of  the  raw  levies  of 
the  continentals,  while  Staten  Island  received 
Howe  with  open  arms,  and  he  was  enabled 
without  difficulty  to  disembark  his  great  force 
of  British  and  German  mercenaries  on  Long 
Island.  The  much  smaller,  motley  force  op 
posed  to  him,  unorganized,  ill  armed,  and  led 
by  utterly  inexperienced  men,  was  beaten,  with 
hardly  an  effort,  in  the  battle  that  followed,  and 
only  escaped  annihilation  through  the  skill  of 
Washington  and  the  supine  blundering  of 
Howe.  Then  it  was  whipped  up  the  Hudson 
and  beyond  the  borders  of  the  State,  the  broken 
remnant  fleeing  across  New  Jersey  ;  and  though 
the  brilliant  feats  of  arms  at  Trenton  and 
Princeton  enabled  the  Americans  to  reconquer 
the  latter  province,  southern  New  York  lay 
under  the  heel  of  the  British  till  the  close  of 
the  war. 

Thus  Moms,  Jay,  and  the  other  New  York 
leaders  were  obliged  for  six  years  to  hold  up 
their  cause  in  a  half-conquered  State,  a  very 
large  proportion  of  whose  population  was  luke 
warm  or  hostile.  The  odds  were  heavy  against 
the  patriots,  because  their  worst  foes  were  those 


THE  OUTBREAK   OF  THE  REVOLUTION.      49 

of  their  own  household.  English  writers  are 
fond  of  insisting  upon  the  alleged  fact  that 
America  only  won  her  freedom  by  the  help  of 
foreign  nations.  Such  help  was  certainly  most 
important,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  it  must  be 
remembered  that  during  the  first  and  vital  years 
of  the  contest  the  revolutionary  colonists  had  to 
struggle  unaided  against  the  British,their  mercen 
ary  German  and  Indian  allies,  Tories,  and  even 
French  Canadians.  When  the  French  court 
declared  in  our  favor  the  worst  was  already 
over  ;  Trenton  had  been  won,  Burgoyne  had 
been  captured,  and  Valley  Forge  was  a  memory 
of  the  past. 

We  did  not  owe  our  main  disasters  to  the 
might  of  our  foes,  nor  our  final  triumph  to 
the  help  of  our  friends.  It  was  on  our  own 
strength  that  we  had  to  rely,  and  it  was  with 
our  own  folly  and  weakness  that  we  had  to 
contend.  The  revolutionary  leaders  can  never 
be  too  highly  praised  ;  but  taken  in  bulk  the 
Americans  of  the  last  quarter  of  the  eighteenth 
century  do  not  compare  to  advantage  with  the 
Americans  of  the  third  quarter  of  the  nineteenth. 
In  our  Civil  War  it  was  the  people  who  pressed 
on  the  leaders,  and  won  almost  as  much  in  spite 
of  as  because  of  them;  but  the  leaders  of  the 
Revolution  had  to  goad  the  rank  and  file  into 
line.  They  were  forced  to  contend  not  only 


50  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

with  the  active  hostility  of  the  Tories,  but  with 
the  passive  neutrality  of  the  indifferent,  and 
the  selfishness,  jealousy,  and  short-sightedness 
of  the  patriotic.  Had  the  Americans  of  1776 
been  united,  and  had  they  possessed  the  stub 
born,  unyielding  tenacity  and  high  devotion  to 
an  ideal  shown  by  the  North,  or  the  heroic  con-, 
stancy  and  matchless  valor  shown  by  the  South, 
in  the  Civil  War,  the  British  would  have  been 
driven  off  the  continent  before  three  years 
were  over. 

It  is  probable  that  nearly  as  great  a  propor 
tion  of  our  own  people  were  actively  or  pas 
sively  opposed  to  the  formation  of  our  union 
originally  as  were  in  favor  of  its  dissolution  in 
1860.  This  was  one  of  the  main  reasons  why 
the  war  dragged  on  so  long.  It  may  be  seen 
by  the  fact,  among  others,  that  when  in  the 
Carolinas  and  Georgia  a  system  of  relentless 
and  undying  partisan  warfare  not  only  crushed 
the  Tories,  but  literally  destroyed  them  from  off 
the  face  of  the  earth,  then  the  British,  though 
still  victorious  in  almost  every  pitched  battle, 
were  at  once  forced  to  abandon  the  field. 

Another  reason  was  the  inferior  military 
capacity  of  the  revolutionary  armies.  The  con^ 
tinental  troops,  when  trained,  were  excellent; 
but  in  almost  every  battle  they  were  mixed 
with  more  or  less  worthless  militia;  and  of  the 


THE  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  REVOLUTION.      51 

soldiers  thus  obtained  all  that  can  be  said  is 
that  their  officers  could  never  be  sure  that 
they  would  fight,  nor  their  enemies  that  they 
would  run  away.  The  revolutionary  troops 
certainly  fell  short  of  the  standard  reached 
by  the  volunteers  who  fought  Shiloh  and  Get 
tysburg.  The  British  rarely  found  them  to  be 
such  foes  as  they  afterwards  met  at  New  Or 
leans  and  Lundy's  Lane.  Throughout  the 
Revolution  the  militia  were  invariably  leaving 
their  posts  at  critical  times;  they  would  grow 
either  homesick  or  dejected,  and  would  then 
go  home  at  the  very  crisis  of  the  campaign  ; 
they  did  not  begin  to  show  the  stubbornness 
and  resolution  to  "  see  the  war  through  "  so 
common  among  their  descendants  in  the  con 
tending  Federal  and  Confederate  armies. 
•  The  truth  is  that  in  1776  our  main  task  was 
-to  shape  new  political  conditions,  and  then  to 
reconcile  our  people  to  them  ;  whereas  in  1860 
we  had  merely  to  fight  fiercely  for  the  preser 
vation  of  what  was  already  ours.  In  the  first 
emergency  we  needed  statesmen,  and  in  the 
second  warriors ;  and  the  statesmen  and  warriors 
were  forthcoming.  A  comparision  of  the  men 
who  came  to  the  front  during  these,  the  two 
heroic  periods  of  the  Republic,  brings  out  this 
point  clearly. 

Washington,    alike   statesman,    soldier,    and 


52  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

patriot,  stands  alone.  He  was  not  only  the 
greatest  American ;  he  was  also  one  of  the 
greatest  men  the  world  has  ever  known.  Few 
centuries  and  few  countries  have  ever  seen  his 
like.  Among  the  people  of  English  stock  there 
is  none  to  compare  with  him,  unless  perhaps 
Cromwell,  utterly  different  though  the  latter 
was.  Of  Americans,  Lincoln  alone  is  worthy 
to  stand  even  second. 

As  for  our  other  statesmen :  Franklin,  Hamil 
ton,  Jefferson,  Adams,  and  their  fellows,  most 
surely  stand  far  above  Seward,  Sumner,  Chase, 
Stanton,  and  Stevens,  great  as  were  the  services 
which  these,  and  those  like  them,  rendered. 

But  when  we  come  to  the  fighting  men,  all  this 
is  reversed.  Asa  mere  military  man  Washing 
ton  himself  cannot  rank  with  the  wonderful 
war-chief  who  for  four  years  led  the  Army  of 
Northern  Virginia ;  and^  the  names  of  Wash 
ington  and  Greene  fill  up  the  short  list  of 
really  good  Revolutionary  Generals.  Against 
these  the  Civil  War  shows  a  roll  that  contairfs 
not  only  Lee,  but  also  Grant  and  Sherman, 
Jackson  and  Johnson,  Thomas,  Sheridan,  and 
Farragut,  —  leaders  whose  volunteer  soldiers 
and  sailors,  at  the  end  of  their  four  years'  ser 
vice,  were  ready  and  more  than  able  to  match 
themselves  against  the  best  regular  forces  of 
Europe. 


CHAPTER   III. 

INDEPENDENCE  :    FORMING   THE   STATE 
CONSTITUTION. 

THE  third  Provincial  Congress,  which  came 
together  in  May,  and  before  the  close  of  its 
sessions  was  obliged  to  adjourn  to  White  Plains, 
had  to  act  on  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
and  provide  for  the  foundation  of  a  new  state 
government. 

Morris  now  put  himself  at  the  head  of  the 
patriotic  party,  and  opened  the  proceedings  by 
a  long  and  very  able  speech  in  favor  of  adopt 
ing  the  recommendation  of  the  Continental 
Congress  that  the  colonies  should  form  new 
governments.  In  his  argument  he  went  at 
length  into  the  history  and  growth  of  the  dis 
pute  with  Great  Britain,  spoke  of  the  efforts 
made  in  the  past  for  reconciliation,  and  then 
showed  clearly  how  such  efforts  were  now  not 
only  hopeless,  but  also  no  longer  compatible 
with  the  dignity  and  manhood  of  Americans. 
He  sneered  at  those  who  argued  that  we  ought 
to  submit  to  Great  Britain  for  the  sake  of  the 


54  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

protection  we  got  from  her.  "  Great  Britain 
will  not  fail  to  bring  us  into  a  war  with  some 
of  her  neighbors,  and  then  protect  us  as  a 
lawyer  defends  a  suit :  the  client  paying  for  it. 
This  is  quite  in  form,  but  a  wise  man  would,  I 
think,  get  rid  of  the  suit  and  the  lawyer  to 
gether.  Again,  how  are  we  to  be  protected  ? 
If  a  descent  is  made  upon  our  coasts  and  the 
British  navy  and  army  are  three  thousand  miles 
off,  we  cannot  receive  very  great  benefit  from 
them  on  that  occasion.  If,  to  obviate  this 
inconvenience,  we  have  an  army  and  navy  con 
stantly  among  us,  who  can  say  that  we  shall 
not  need  a  little  protection  against  them?"  He 
went  on  to  point  out  the  hopelessness  of  expect 
ing  Great  Britain  to  keep  to  any  terms  which 
would  deprive  Parliament  of  its  supremacy  over 
America;  for  no  succeeding  Parliament  could 
be  held  bound  by  the  legislation  of  its  prede 
cessor,  and  the  very  acknowledgment  of  British 
supremacy  on  the  part  of  the  Americans  would 
bind  them  as  subjects,  and  make  the  supremacy 
of  Parliament  legitimate.  He  bade  his  hearers 
remember  the  maxim  "that  no  faith  is  to  be 
kept  with  rebels ;  "  and  said :  "  In  this  case,  or 
in  any  other  case,  if  we  fancy  ourselves  hardly 
dealt  with,  I  maintain  there  is  no  redress  but 
by  arms.  For  it  never  yet  was  known  that, 
when  men  assume  power,  they  will  part  with  it 
again,  unless  by  compulsion." 


INDEPENDENCE.  55 

He  then  took  up  the  subject  of  independence, 
showed,  for  the  benefit  of  the  good  but  timid 
men  who  were  frightened  at  the  mere  title, 
that,  in  all  but  name,  it  already  existed  in  New 
York,  and  proved  that  its  maintenance  was 
essential  to  our  well-being.  "My  argument, 
therefore,  stands  thus  :  As  a  connection  with 
Great  Britain  cannot  again  exist  without  en 
slaving  America,  an  independence  is  absolutely 
necessary.  I  cannot  balance  between  the  two. 
We  run  a  hazard  in  one  path,  I  confess  ;  but 
then  we  are  infallibly  ruined  if  we  pursue  the 
other.  .  .  .  We  find  the  characteristic  marks 
and  insignia  of  independence  in  this  society, 
considered  in  itself  and  compared  with  other 
societies.  The  enumeration  is  conviction.  Coin 
ing  moneys,  raising  armies,  regulating  com 
merce,  peace,  war :  all  these  things  you  are  not 
only  adepts  in,  but  masters  of.  Treaties  alone 
remain,  and  even  those  you  have  dabbled  at. 
Georgia  you  put  under  the  ban  of  empire,  and 
received  her  upon  repentance  as  a  member  of 
the  flock.  Canada  you  are  now  treating  with. 
France  and  Spain  you  ought  to  treat  with,  and 
the  rest  is  but  a  name.  I  believe,  sir,  the  Ro 
mans  were  as  much  governed,  or  rather  op 
pressed,  by  their  emperors,  as  ever  any  people 
were  by  their  king.  But  emperor  was  more 
agreeable  to  their  ears  than  king.  [So]  some, 


56  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

nay,  many,  persons  in  America  dislike  the  word 
independence." 

He  then  went  on  to  show  how  independence 
would  work  well  alike  for  our  peace,  liberty,  and 
security.  Considering  the  first,  he  laughed  at 
the  apprehensions  expressed  by  some  that  the 
moment  America  was  independent  all  the  powers 
of  Europe  would  pounce  down  on  her,  to  parcel 
out  the  country  among  themselves ;  and  showed 
clearly  that  to  a  European  power  any  war  of 
conquest  in  America  would  be  "tedious,  ex 
pensive,  uncertain,  and  ruinous,"  and  that  none 
of  the  country  could  be  kept  even  if  it  should 
come  to  pass  that  some  little  portion  of  it  were 
conquered.  "But  I  cannot  think  it  will  ever 
come  to  this.  For  when  I  turn  my  eyes  to  the 
means  of  defense,  I  find  them  amply  sufficient. 
We  have  all  heard  that  in  the  last  war  America 
was  conquered  in  Germany.  I  hold  the  con 
verse  of  this  to  be  true,  namely,  that  in  and 
by  America  his  Majesty's  German  dominions 
were  secured.  ...  I  expect  a  full  and  lasting 
defense  against  any  and  every  part  of  the 
earth."  After  thus  treating  of  the  advantages 
to  be  hoped  for  on  the  score  of  peace,  he  turns 
attention  "  to  a  question  of  infinitely  greater  im 
portance,  namely,  the  liberty  of  this  country  ;  " 
and  afterwards  passes  to  the  matter  of  security, 
which, "so  long  as  the  system  of  laws  by  which 


INDEPENDENCE.  57 

we  are  now  governed  shall  prevail,  is  amply  pro 
vided  for  in  every  separate  colony.  There  may 
indeed  arise  an  objection  because  some  gentle 
men  suppose  that  the  different  colonies  will 
carry  on  a  sort  of  land  piracy  against  one  an 
other.  But  how  this  can  possibly  happen  when 
the  idea  of  separate  colonies  no  longer  exists  I 
cannot  for  my  soul  comprehend.  That  some 
thing  very  like  this  has  already  been  done  I 
shall  not  deny,  but  the  reason  is  as  evident  as 
the  fact.  We  never  yet  had  a  government  in 
this  country  of  sufficient  energy  to  restrain  the 
lawless  and  indigent.  Whenever  a  form  of 
government  is  established  which  deserves  the 
name,  these  insurrections  must  cease.  But  who 
is  the  man  so  hardy  as  to  affirm  that  they  will 
not  grow  with  our  growth,  while  on  every  occa 
sion  we  must  resort  to  an  English  judicature 
to  terminate  differences  which  the  maxims  of 
policy  will  teach  them  to  leave  undetermined? 
By  degrees  we  are  getting  beyond  the  utmost 
pale  of  English  government.  Settlements  are 
forming  to  the  westward  of  us,  whose  inhabi 
tants  acknowledge  no  authority  but  their  own." 
In  one  sentence  lie  showed  rather  a  change  of 
heart,  as  regarded  his  former  aristocratic  lean 
ings ;  for  he  reproached  those  who  were  "ap 
prehensive  of  losing  a  little  consequence  ;uul 
importance  by  living  in  a  country  where  all 


58  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

are  on  an  equal  footing,"  and  predicted  that  we 
should  "  cause  all  nations  to  resort  hither  as  an 
asylum  from  oppression/' 

The  speech  was  remarkable  for  its  incisive 
1   directness  and  boldness,  for  the  exact  clearness 
|  with  which   it  portrayed   things  as  they  were, 
||  for   the  broad  sense   of  American    nationality 
I  that  it  displayed,  and  for  the  accurate  forecasts 
that  it  contained  as  to  our  future  course  in  cer 
tain  particulars,  —-such  as  freedom  from  Euro 
pean    wars    and    entanglements,   a  strong    but 
purely  defensive  foreign  policy,  the  encourage 
ment  of  the  growth  of  the  West,  while  keeping 
it  united  to  us,  and  the  throwing  open  our  doors 
to  the  oppressed  from  abroad. 

Soon  after  the  delivery  of  this  speech  news 
came  that  the  Declaration  of  Independence  had 
been  adopted  by  the  Continental  Congress  ;  and 
Jay,  one  of  the  New  York  delegates  to  this 
body,  and  also  a  member  of  the  Provincial 
Congress,  drew  up  for  the  latter  a  resolution 
emphatically  indorsing  the  declaration,  which 
was  at  once  adopted  without  a  dissenting  voice. 
At  the  same  time  the  Provincial  Congress 
changed  its  name  to  that  of  "  The  Convention  of 
.the  Representatives  of  the  State  of  New  York." 
These  last  acts  were  done  by  a  body  that  had 
been  elected,  with  increased  power,  to  succeed 
the  third  Provincial  Congress  and  provide  for 


INDEPENDENCE.  59 

a  new  constitution.  Just  before  this,  Morris  had 
been  sent  to  the  Continental  Congress  in  Phila 
delphia  to  complain  that  the  troops  from  New 
England  were  paid  more  largely  than  those 
from  the  other  colonies ;  a  wrong  which  was  at 
once  redressed,  the  wages  of  the  latter  being 
raised,  and  Morris  returned  to  New  York  in 
triumph  after  only  a  week's  absence. 

The  Constitutional  Convention  of  New  York  [I 
led  a  most  checkered  life  ;  for  the  victorious  ( 
British  chevied  it  up  and  down  the  State,  hunt 
ing  it  in  turn  from  every  small  town  in  which 
it  thought  to  have  found  a  peaceful  haven  of 
refuge.  At  last  it  rested  in  Fiskhill,  such  an 
out-of-the-way  place  as  to  be  free  from  danger. 
The  members  were  obliged  to  go  armed,  so  as 
to  protect  themselves  from  stray  marauding 
parties ;  and  the  number  of  delegates  in  at 
tendance  alternately  dwindled  and  swelled  in 
a  wonderful  manner,  now  resolving  themselves 
into  a  committee  of  safety,  and  again  resuming 
their  functions  as  members  of  the  convention. 

The  most  important  duties  of  the  convention 
were  intrusted  to  two  committees.     Of  the  first, 
which  was  to  draft  a  plan  for  the  Constitution, 
Morris,  Jay,    and  Livingston    were    the    three 
leading  members,  upon  whom  all  the  work  fell ;  1  j 
of  the  second,  which  was  to  devise  means  for  the  1] 
establishment  of  a  state  fund,  Morris  was  the  \ 
chairman  and  moving  spirit. 


60  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

He  was  also  chairman  of  a  committee  which 
was  appointed  to  look  after  the  Tories,  and  pre 
vent  them  from  joining  together  and  rising ; 
and  so  numerous  were"  they  that  the  jails  were 
soon  choked  with  those  of  their  number  who, 
on  account  of  their  prominence  or  bitterness, 
were  most  obnoxious  to  the  patriots.  Also  a 
partial  system  of  confiscation  of  Tory  estates 
was  begun.  So  greatly  were  the  Tories  feared 
and  hated,  and  so  determined  were  the  at 
tempts  to  deprive  them  of  even  the  shadow  of 
a  chance  to  do  harm,  by  so  much  as  a  word,  that 
the  convention  sent  a  memorial,  drafted  by 
Morris,  to  the  Continental  Congress,  in  which 
they  made  the  very  futile  suggestion  that  it 
should  take  "  some  measures  for  expunging 
from  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  such  parts, 
and  discontinuing  in  the  congregations  of  all 
other  denominations  all  such  prayers,  as  inter 
fere  with  the  interests  of  the  American  cause." 
The  resolution  was  not  acted  on ;  but  another 
part  of  the  memorial  shows  how  the  Church 
of  England  men  were  standing  by  the  mother 
country,  for  it  goes  on  to  recite  that  "  the 
enemies  of  America  have  taken  great  pains  to 
insinuate  into  the  minds  of  the  Episcopalians 
that  the  church  is  in  danger.  We  could  wish 
the  Congress  would  pass  some  resolve  to  quiet 
their  fears,  and  we  are  confident  that  it  would 


INDEPENDENCE.  61 

do  essential  service  to  the  cause  of  America,  at 
least  in  this  State." 

Morris's  position  in  regard  to  the  Tories  was 
a  peculiarly  hard  one,  because  among  their 
number  were  many  of  his  own  relatives,  in 
cluding  his  elder  brother.  The  family  house, 
where  his  mother  resided,  was  within  the 
British  lines ;  and  not  only  did  he  feel  the  dis 
approval  of  such  of  his  people  as  were  loyalists, 
on  the  one  side,  but,  on  the  other,  his  letters 
to  his  family  caused  him  to  be  regarded  with 
suspicion  by  the  baser  spirits  in  the  American 
party.  About  this  time  one  of  his  sisters  died  ; 
the  letter  he  then  wrote  to  his  mother  is  in  the 
usual  formal  style  of  the  time,  yet  it  shows  marks 
of  deep  feeling,  and  he  takes  occasion,  while 
admitting  that  the  result  of  the  war  was  un 
certain,  to  avow,  with  a  sternness  unusual  to 
him,  his  intention  to  face  all  things  rather  than 
abandon  the  patriot  cause.  "  The  worst  that 
can  happen  is  to  fall  on  the  last  bleak  moun 
tain  of  America ;  and  he  who  dies  there  in 
defense  of  the  injured  rights  of  mankind  is 
happier  than  his  conqueror,  more  beloved  by 
mankind,  more  applauded  by  his  own  heart.''' 
The  letter  closes  by  a  characteristic  touch,  when 
he  sends  his  love  to  "  such  as  deserve  it.  The 
number  is  not  great." 

The  committee  on  the  constitution  was  not 


62  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

ready  to  report  until  March,  1777.  Then  the 
convention  devoted  itself  solely  to  the  considera 
tion  of  the  report,  which,  after  several  weeks' 
discussion,  was  adopted  with  very  little  change. 
Jay  and  Morris  led  the  debate  before  the 
convention,  as  they  had  done  previously  in 
committee.  There  was  perfect  agreement  upon 
the  general  principles.  Freehold  suffrage  was 
adopted,  and  a  majority  of  the  freeholders  of  the 
State  were  thus  the  ultimate  governing  power. 
The  executive,  judicial,  and  legislative  powers 
were  separated  sharply,  as  was  done  in  the 
other  States,  and  later  on  in  the  Federal  Con 
stitution  as  well.  The  legislative  body  was 
divided  into  two  chambers. 

It  was  over  the  executive  branch  that  the 
main  contest  arose.  It  was  conceded  that  £his 
should  be  nominally  single  headed ;  that  is, 
that  there  should  be  a  governor.  But  the 
members  generally  could  not  realize  how  dif 
ferent  was  a  governor  elected  by  the  people 
and  responsible  to  them,  from  one  appointed  by 
an  alien  and  higher  power  to  rule  over  them,  as 
in  the  colonial  days.  The  remembrance  of  the 
contests  with  the  royal  governors  was  still  fresh  ; 
and  the  mere  name  of  governor  frightened 
them.  They  had  the  same  illogical  fear  of  the 
executive  that  the  demagogues  of  to-day  (and 
some  honest  but  stupid  people,  as  well)  profess 


INDEPENDENCE.  63 

to  feel  for  a  standing  army.  Men  often  let 
the  dread  of  the  shadow  of  a  dead  wrong 
frighten  them  into  courting  a  living  evil. 

Morris  himself  was  wonderfully  clear-sighted 
and  cool-headed.  He  did  not  let  the  memory 
of  the  wrong -doing  of  the  royal  governors 
blind  him ;  he  saw  that  the  trouble  with  them 
lay,  not  in  the  power  that  they  held,  but  in  the 
source  from  which  that  power  came.  Once  the 
source  was  changed,  the  power  was  an  advan 
tage,  not  a  harm,  to  the  State.  Yet  few  or  none 
of  his  companions  could  see  this;  and  they 
nervously  strove  to  save  their  new  State  from 
the  danger  of  executive  usurpation  by  trying 
to  make  the  executive  practically  a  board  of 
men  instead  of  one  man,  and  by  crippling  it  so 
as  to  make  it  ineffective  for  good,  while  at  the 
same  time  dividing  the  responsibility,  so  that 
no  one  need  be  afraid  to  do  evil.  Above  all, 
they  were  anxious  to  take  away  from  the  gov 
ernor  the  appointment  of  the  military  and  civil 
servants  of  the  State. 

Morris  had  persuaded  the  committee  to  leave 
the  appointment  of  these  officials  to  the  gov 
ernor,  the  legislature  retaining  the  power  of 
confirmation  or  rejection  ;  but  the  convention, 
under  the  lead  of  Jay,  rejected  this  proposi 
tion,  and  after  some  discussion  adopted  in  its 
place  the  cumbrous  and  foolish  plan  of  a 


64  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

"council  of  appointment,"  to  consist  of  the 
governor  and  several  senators.  As  might  have 
been  expected,  this  artificial  body  worked  noth 
ing  but  harm,  and  became  simply  a  peculiarly 
odious  political  machine. 

Again,  Morris  advocated  giving  the  governor 
a  qualified  veto  over  the  acts  passed  by  the 
legislature  ;  but  instead  of  such  a  simple  and 
straightforward  method  of  legislative  revision, 
the  convention  saw  fit  to  adopt  a  companion 
piece  of  foolishness  to  the  council  of  appoint 
ment,  in  the  shape  of  the  equally  complicated 
and  anomalous  council  of  revision,  consisting  of 
the  governor,  chancellor,  and  judges  of  the  su 
preme  court,  by  whom  all  the  acts  of  the  legis 
lature  had  to  be  revised  before  they  could 
become  laws.  It  is  marvelous  that  these  two 
bodies  should  h£ve  lived  on  so  long  as  they  did 
—  over  forty 'years. 

The  convention  did  one  most  praiseworthy 
thing  in  deciding  in  favor  of  complete  religious 
toleration.  ^This  seems  natural  enough  now; 
but  at  that  time  there  was  hardly  a  European 
state  that  practiced  it.  Great  Britain  harassed 
her  Catholic  subjects  in  a  hundred  different 
ways,  while  in  France  Protestants  were  treated 
far  worse,  and,  in  fact,  could  scarcely  be  re 
garded  as  having  any  legal  standing  whatever. 
On  no  other  one  point  do  the  statesmen  of  the 


INDEPENDENCE.  65 

Revolution  show  to  more  marked  advantage 
when  compared  with  their  European  compeers 
than  in  this  of  complete  religious  toleration. 
Their  position  was  taken,  too,  simply  because 
they  deemed  it  to  be  the  right  and  proper  one ; 
they  had  nothing  to  fear  or  hope  from  Catholics, 
and  their  own  interests  were  in  no  wise  ad 
vanced  by  what  they  did  in  the  matter. 

But  in  the  New  York  convention  toleration 
was  not  obtained  without  a  fight.  There  al 
ways  rankled  in  Jay's  mind  the  memory  of  the- 
terrible  cruelty  wrought  by  Catholics  on  his 
Huguenot  forefathers  ;  and  he  introduced  into 
the  article  on  toleration  an  appendix,  which  dis 
criminated  against  the  adherents  of  the  Church 
of  Rome,  denying  them  the  rights  of  citizen 
ship  until  they  should  solemnly  swear  before 
the  supreme  court,  first,  u  that  they  verily  be 
lieve  in  their  conscience  that  no  pope,  priest,  or 
foreign  authoritv  on  earth  has  power  to  absolve 
the  subjects  of  this  State  from  their  allegiance 
to  the  same  ;  "  and,  second,  "  that  they  renounce 
.  .  .  the  dangerous  and  damnable  doctrine  that 
the  Pope  or  any  other  earthly  authority  has 
power  to  absolve  men  from  sins  described  in 
and  prohibited  by  the  Holy  Gospel."  This 
second  point,  however  important,  was  of  purely 
theological  interest,  and  had  absolutely  nothing 
to  do  with  the  state  constitution  ;  as  to  the 

5 


66  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

first  proposition,  it  might  have  been  proper 
enough  had  there  been  the  least  chance  of  a 
conflict  between  the  Pope,  either  in  his  temporal 
or  his  ecclesiastical  capacity,  and  the  United 
States  ;  but  as  there  was  no  possibility  of  such 
a  conflict  arising,  and  as,  if  it  did  arise,  there 
would  not  be  the  slightest  danger  of  the  United 
States  receiving  any  damage,  to  put  the  sen 
tence  in  would  have  been  not  only  useless,  but 
exceedingly  foolish  and  harmful,  on  account  of 
the  intense  irritation  it  would  have  excited. 

The  whole  clause  was  rejected  by  a  two  to 
one  vote,  and  then  all  the  good  that  it  aimed 
at  was  accomplished  by  the  adoption,  on  the 
motion  of  Morris,  of  a  proviso  that  the  tolera 
tion  granted  should  not  be  held  to  "  justify 
practices  inconsistent  with  the  peace  and  safety 
of  this  State."  This  proviso  of  Morris  re 
mains  in  the  Constitution  to  this  day  ;  and  thus, 
while  absolute  religious  liberty  is  guaranteed, 
the  State  reserves  to  itself  full  right  of  protec-j 
tion,  if  necessary,  against  the  adherents  of  any 
religious  body,  foreign  or  domestic,  if  they 
menace  the  public  safety. 

On  a  question  even  more  important  than 
religious  toleration,  namely,  the  abolition  of 
domestic  slavery,  Jay  and  Morris  fought  side 
by  side;  but  though  the  more  enlightened  of 
their  fellow -members  went  with  them,  they 


INDEPENDENCE.  67 

were  a  little  too  much  in  advance  of  the  age, 
and  failed.  They  made  every  effort  to  have  a 
clause  introduced  into  the  constitution  recom 
mending  to  the  future  legislature  of  New  York 
to  abolish  slavery  as  soon  as  it  could  be  done 
consistently  with  the  public  safety  and  the 
rights  of  property;  "so  that  in  future  ages  every 
human  being  who  breathes  the  air  of  this  State 
shall  enjoy  the  privileges  of  a  free  man."  Al 
though  they  failed  in  their  immediate  purpose, 
yet  they  had  much  hearty  support,  and  by  the 
bold  stand  they  took  and  the  high  ground  they 
occupied  they  undoubtedly  brought  nearer  the 
period  when  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  New 
York  became  practicable. 

The  Constitution  was  finally  adopted  by  the 
convention  almost  unanimously,  and  went  into 
effect  forthwith,  as  there  was  no  ratification  by 
the  people  at  large. 

As  soon  as  it  was  adopted  a  committee,  which 
included  Morris,  Jay,  and  Livingston,  was  ap 
pointed  to  start  and  organize  the  new  govern 
ment.  The  courts  of  justice  were  speedily  put 
in  running  order,  and  thus  one  of  the  most  cry 
ing  evils  that  affected  the  State  was  remedied. 
A  council  of  safety  of  fifteen  members  —  again 
including  Morris  —  was  established  to  act  as 
the  provincial  government,  until  the  regular 
legislature  should  convene.  An  election  for 


68  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

governor  was  also  held  almost  immediately, 
and  Clinton  was  chosen.  He  was  then  serving 
in  the  field,  where  he  had  done  good  work,  and, 
together  with  his  brother  James,  had  fought 
with  the  stubborn  valor  that  seems  to  go  with 
Anglo-Irish  blood.  He  did  not  give  up  his 
command  until  several  months  after  he  was 
elected,  although  meanwhile  keeping  up  con 
stant  communication  with  the  council  of  safety, 
through  whom  he  acted  in  matters  of  state. 

Meanwhile  Burgoyne,  with  his  eight  or  nine 
thousand  troops,  excellently  drilled  British 
and  Hessians,  assisted  by  Tories,  Canadians, 
and  Indians,  had  crossed  the  northern  frontier, 
and  was  moving  down  towards  the  heart  of 
the  already  disorganized  State,  exciting  the 
wildest  panic  and  confusion.  The  council  of 
safety  hardly  knew  how  to  act,  and  finally  sent 
a  committee  of  two,  Morris  being  one,  to  the 
headquarters  of  General  Schuyler,  who  had  the 
supreme  command  over  all  the  troops  in  the 
northern  part  of  New  York. 

On  Morris's  arrival  he  found  affairs  at  a  very 
low  ebb,  and  at  once  wrote  to  describe  this  con 
dition  to  the  president  of  the  council  of  safety. 
Burgoyne's  army  had  come  steadily  on.  He 
first  destroyed  Arnold's  flotilla  on  Lake  Cham- 
plain.  Then  he  captured  the  forts  along  the 
Lakes,  and  utterly  wrecked  the  division  of  the 


INDEPENDENCE.  69 

American  army  that  had  been  told  off  to  defend 
them,  under  the  very  unfortunate  General  St. 
Clair.  He  was  now  advancing  through  the  great 
reaches  of  wooded  wilderness  towards  the  head 
of  the  Hudson.  Schuyler,  a  general  of  fair 
capacity,  was  doing  what  he  could  to  hold  the 
enemy  back  ;  but  his  one  efficient  supporter  was 
the  wilderness  itself,  through  which  the  British 
army  stumbled  painfully  along.  Schuyler  had 
in  all  less  than  five  thousand  men,  half  of  them 
short  service  continental  troops,  the  other  half 
militia.  The  farmers  would  not  turn  out  until 
after  harvest  home ;  all  the  bodies  of  militia, 
especially  those  from  New  England,  were  very 
insubordinate  and  of  most  fickle  temper,  and 
could  not  be  depended  on  for  any  sustained 
contest ;  as  an  example,  Stark,  under  whose 
nominal  command  the  northern  New  England- 
ers  won  the  battle  of  Bennington,  actually 
marched  off  his  whole  force  the  day  before  the 
battle  of  Stillwater,  alleging  the  expiration  of 
the  term  of  service  of  his  soldiers  as  an  excuse  for 
•what  looked  like  gross  treachery  or  cowardice, 
but  was  probably  merely  sheer  selfish  wrong- 
headedness  and  mean  jealousy.  Along  the  Mo 
hawk  valley  the  dismay  was  extreme,  and  the 
militia  could  not  be  got  out  at  all.  Jay  was  so 
angered  by  the  abject  terror  in  this  quarter  that 
he  advised  leaving  the  inhabitants  to  shift  for 


70  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

themselves ;  sound  advice,  too,  for  when  the 
pinch  came  and  they  were  absolutely  forced 
to  take  arms,  they  did  very  fairly  at  Oriskany. 
It  was  even  feared  that  the  settlers  of  the  re 
gion  which  afterwards  became  Vermont  would 
go  over  to  the  enemy  ;  still,  time  and  space  were 
in  our  favor,  and  Morris  was  quite  right  when 
he  said  in  his  first  letter  (dated  July  16,  1777)  : 
"Upon  the  whole  I  think  we  shall  do  very 
well,  but  this  opinion  is  founded  merely  upon 
the  barriers  which  nature  has  raised  against 
all  access  from  the  northward."  As  he  said  of 
himself,  he  was  "  a  good  guesser." 

He  outlined  the  plan  which  he  thought  the 
Americans  should  follow.  This  was  to  harass 
the  British  in  every  way,  without  risking  a 
stand-up  fight,  while  laying  waste  the  country 
through  which  they  were  to  pass  so  as  to  render 
it  impossible  for  an  army  to  subsist  on  it.  For 
the  militia  he  had  the  most  hearty  contempt, 
writing :  "  Three  hundred  of  the  militia  of 
Massachusetts  Bay  went  off  this  morning,  in 
spite  of  the  opposition  —  we  should  have  said,  en 
treaties —  of  their  officers.  All  the  militia  on  the 
ground  are  so  heartily  tired,  and  so  extremely 
desirous  of  getting  home,  that  it  is  more  than 
probable  that  none  of  them  will  remain  here 
'ten  days  longer.  One  half  was  discharged  two 
days  ago,  to  silence,  if  possible,  their  clamor  ; 


INDEPENDENCE.  71 

and  the  remainder,  officers  excepted,  will  soon 
discharge  themselves." 

The  council  of  safety  grew  so  nervous  over  the 
outlook  that  their  letters  became  fairly  queru 
lous  ;  and  they  not  unnaturally  asked  Morris  to 
include  in  his  letters  some  paragraphs  that  could 
be  given  to  the  public.  To  this  that  rather 
quick-tempered  gentleman  took  exceptions,  and 
replied  caustically  in  his  next  letter,  the  open 
ing  paragraph  being :  " We  have  received  yours 
of  the  19th,  which  has  afforded  us  great  pleas 
ure,  since  we  are  enabled  in  some  measure  to 
collect  from  it  our  errand  to  the  northward, 
one  of  the  most  important  objects  of  our  journey 
being,  in  the  opinion  of  your  honorable  body, 
to  write  the  news,"  and  he  closes  by  stating 
that  he  shall  come  back  to  wait  upon  them,  and 
learn  their  pleasure,  at  once. 

Meanwhile  the  repeated  disasters  in  the  north 
had  occasioned  much  clamor  against  Schuyler, 
who,  if  not  a  brilliant  general,  had  still  done 
what  he  could  in  very  trying  circumstances, 
and  was  in  no  wise  responsible  for  the  various 
mishaps  that  had  occurred.  The  New  England 
members  of  Congress,  always  jealous  of  New 
York,  took  advantage  of  this  to  begin  intrigu 
ing  against  him,  under  the  lead  of  Roger 
Sherman  and  others,  and  finally  brought  about 
his  replacement  by  Gates,  a  much  inferior  man, 


72  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

with  no  capacity  whatever  for  command.  Mor 
ris  and  Jay  both  took  up  Schuyler's  cause  very 
warmly,  seeing  clearly,  in  the  first -place,  that 
the  disasters  were  far  from  ruinous,  and  that  a 
favorable  outcome  was  probable ;  and,  in  the 
second  place,  that  it  was  the  people  themselves 
who  were  to  blame  and  not  Schuyler.  They 
went  on  to  Philadelphia  to  speak  for  him,  but 
they  arrived  just  a  day  too  late,  Gates  having 
been  appointed  twenty-four  hours  previous  to 
their  coming. 

When  Gates  reached  his  army  the  luck  had 
already  begun  to  turn.  Burgoyne's  outlying 
parties  had  been  destroyed,  his  Indians  and 
Canadians  had  left  him,  he  had  been  disap 
pointed  in  his  hopes  of  a  Tory  uprising  in  his 
favor,  and,  hampered  by  his  baggage -train,  he 
had  been  brought  almost  to  a  stand-still  in  the 
tangled  wilds  through  which  he  had  slowly 
ploughed  his  way.  Schuyler  had  done  what  he 
could  to  hinder  the  foe's  progress,  and  had  kept 
his  own  army  together  as  a  rallying  point  for 
the  militia,  who,  having  gathered  in  their  har 
vests,  and  being  inspirited  by  the  outcome  of  the 
fights  at  Oriskany  and  Bennington,  flocked  in 
by  hundreds  to  the  American  standard.  Gates 
himself  did  literally  nothing ;  he  rather  hin 
dered  his  men  than  otherwise ;  and  the  latter 
were  turbulent  and  prone  to  disobey  orders. 


INDEPENDENCE.  73 

But  they  were  now  in  fine  feather  for  fight 
ing,  and  there  were  plenty  of  them.  So  Gates 
merely  sat  still,  and  the  levy  of  backwoods 
farmers,  all  good  individual  fighters,  and  with 
some  excellent  brigade  and  regimental  com 
manders,  such  as  Arnold  and  Morgan,  fairly 
mobbed  to  death  the  smaller  number  of  dispirited 
and  poorly  led  regulars  against  whom  they  were 
pitted.  When  the  latter  were  at  last  fought 
out  and  forced  to  give  in,  Gates  allowed  them 
much  better  terms  than  he  should  have  done ; 
and  the  Continental  Congress,  to  its  shame, 
snatched  at  a  technicality,  under  cover  of  which 
to  break  the  faith  plighted  through  its  general, 
and  to  avoid  fulfilling  the  conditions  to  which 
he  had  so  foolishly  agreed. 

Morris  and  Jay,  though  unable  to  secure  the 
retention  of  Schuyler,  had,  nevertheless,  by  their 
representations  while  at  Philadelphia,  prevailed 
on  the  authorities  largely  to  reinforce  the  army 
which  was  about  to  be  put  under  Gates.  Morris 
was  very  angry  at  the  intrigue  by  which  the 
latter  had  been  given  the  command  ;  but  what 
he  was  especially  aiming  at  was  the  success  of 
the  cause,  not  the  advancement  of  his  friends. 
Once  Gates  was  appointed  he  did  all  in  his 
power  to  strengthen  him,  and,  with  his  usual 
clear-sightedness,  he  predicted  his  ultimate  suc 
cess. 


74  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

Schuyler  was  a  man  of  high  character  and 
public  spirit,  and  he  behaved  really  nobly  in 
the  midst  of  his  disappointment  ;  his  conduct 
throughout  affording  a  very  striking  contrast  to 
that  of  McClellan,  under  somewhat  similar  cir 
cumstances  in  the  Civil  War.  Morris  wrote  him, 
sympathizing  with  him,  and  asking  him  to  sink 
all  personal  feeling  and  devote  his  energies  to 
the  common  weal  of  the  country  while  out  of 
power  just  as  strenuously  as  he  had  done  when 
in  command.  Schuyler  responded  that  he 
should  continue  to  serve  his  country  as  zeal 
ously  as  before,  and  he  made  his  words  good  ; 
but  Gates  was  jealous  of  the  better  man  whose 
downfall  he  had  been  the  instrument  of  accom 
plishing,  and  declined  to  profit  by  his  help. 

In  a  later  letter  to  Schuyler,  written  Sep 
tember  18,  1777,  Morris  praised  the  latter  very 
warmly  for  the  way  he  had  behaved,  and  com 
mented  roughly  on  Gates'  littleness  of  spirit. 
He  considered  that  with  such  a  commander 
there  was  nothing  to  be  hoped  for  from  skillful 
management,  and  that  Burgoyne  would  have  to 
be  simply  tired  out.  Alluding  to  a  rumor  that 
the  Indians  were  about  to  take  up  the  hatchet 
for  us,  he  wrote,  in  the  humorous  vein  he 
adopted  so  often  in  dealing  even  with  the  most 
pressing  matters  :  "  If  this  be  true,  it  would  be 
infinitely  better  to  wear  away  the  enemy's  army 


INDEPENDENCE.  75 

by  a  scrupulous  and  polite  attention,  than  to 
violate  the  rules  of  decorum  and  the  laws  of 
hospitality  by  making  an  attack  upon  strangers 
in  our  own  country  ! "  He  gave  Schuyler  the 
news  of  Washington's  defeat  at  the  battle  of 
Brandywine,  and  foretold  the  probable  loss  of 
Philadelphia  and  a  consequent  winter  campaign. 
In  ending  he  gave  a  thoroughly  characteris 
tic  sketch  of  the  occupations  of  himself  and  his 
colleagues.  "  The  chief  justice  (Jay)  is  gone 
to  fetch  his  wife.  The  chancellor  (Livingston) 
is  solacing  himself  with  his  wife,  his  farm,  and 
his  imagination.  Our  senate  is  doing,  I  know 
not  what.  In  assembly  we  wrangle  long  to 
little  purpose.  .  .  .  We  have  some  principles 
of  fermentation  which  must,  if  it  be  possible, 
evaporate  before  business  is  entered  upon." 


CHAPTER  IV. 

IN  THE   CONTINENTAL   CONGRESS. 

AT  the  end  of  1777,  while  still  but  twenty- 
five  years  old,  Morris  was  elected  to  the  Con 
tinental  Congress,  and  took  his  seat  in  that 
body  at  Yorktown  in  the  following  January. 

He  was  immediately  appointed  as  one  of  a 
committee  of  five  members  to  go  to  Washing 
ton's  headquarters  at  Valley  Forge  and  ex 
amine  into  the  condition  of  the  continental 
troops. 

The  dreadful  suffering  of  the  American  army 
in  this  winter  camp  was  such  that  its  memory 
has  literally  eaten  its  way  into  the  hearts  of 
our  people,  and  it  comes  before  our  minds  with 
a  vividness  that  dims  the  remembrance  of  any 
other  disaster.  Washington's  gaunt,  half- 
starved  continentals,  shoeless  and  ragged,  shiv 
ered  in  their  crazy  huts,  worn  out  by  want 
and  illness,  and  by  the  bitter  cold  ;  while  the 
members  of  the  Continental  Congress  not  only 
failed  to  support  them  in  the  present,  but 
even  grudged  them  the  poor  gift  of  a  promise 


IN  THE  CONTINENTAL   CONGRESS.  77 

of  half-pay  in  the  future.  Some  of  the  del 
egates,  headed  by  Samuel  Adams,  were  actu 
ally  caballing  against  the  great  chief  himself, 
the  one  hope  of  America.  Meanwhile  the 
States  looked  askance  at  each  other,  and  each 
sunk  into  supine  indifference  when  its  own 
borders  were  for  the  moment  left  unthreatened 
by  the  foe.  Throughout  the  Revolutionary 
War  our  people  hardly  once  pulled  with  a  will 
together ;  although  almost  every  locality  in 
turn,  on  some  one  occasion,  varied  its  lethargy 
by  a  spasm  of  terrible  energy.  Yet,  again,  it 
must  be  remembered  that  we  were  never  more 
to  be  dreaded  than  when  our  last  hope  seemed 
gone ;  and  if  the  people  were  unwilling  to 
show  the  wisdom  and  self-sacrifice  that  would 
have  insured  success,  they  were  equally  deter 
mined  under  no  circumstances  whatever  to  ac 
knowledge  final  defeat. 

To  Jay,  with  whom  he  was  always  intimate, 
Morris  wrote  in  strong  terms  from  Valley 
Forge,  painting  things  as  they  were,  but  with 
out  a  shadow  of  doubt  or  distrust ;  for  he  by 
this  time  saw  clearly  enough  that  in  American 
warfare  the  darkest  hour  was  often  followed 
close  indeed  by  dawn.  *'  The  skeleton  of  an 
army  presents  itself  to  our  eyes  in  a  naked, 
starving  condition,  out  of  health,  out  of  spirits. 
But  I  have  seen  Fort  George  in  1777."  The 


78  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

last  sentence  refers  to  what  he  saw  of  Sclmy- 
ler's  forces,  when  affairs  in  New  York  State 
were  at  the  blackest,  just  before  the  tide  be 
gan  to  turn  against  Burgoyne.  He  then  went 
on  to  beseech  Jay  to  exert  himself  to  the  ut 
most  on  the  great  question  of  taxation,  the 
most  vital  of  all.  Morris  himself  was  so  good  a 
financier  that  revolutionary  financial  economics 
drove  him  almost  wild.  The  Continental  Con 
gress,  of  which  he  had  just  become  a  member, 
he  did  not  esteem  very  highly,  and  dismissed 
it,  as  well  as  the  currency,  as  having  "  both 
depreciated."  The  State  of  Pennsylvania,  he 
remarked,  was  "sick  unto  death ;"  and  added 
that  "  Sir  William  [the  British  general]  would 
prove  a  most  damnable  physician." 

Most  wisely,  in  examining  and  reporting,  he 
paid  heed  almost  exclusively  to  Washington's 
recommendations,  and  the  plan  he  and  his 
colleagues  produced  was  little  more  than  an 
enlargement  of  the  general's  suggestions  as 
to  filling  out  the  regiments,  regulating  rank, 
modeling  the  various  departments,  etc.  In  fact, 
TC  Morris,now  devoted  himself  to  securing  the  ap 
proval  of  Congress  for  Washington's  various 
plans. 

In  urging  one  of  the  most  important  of  these 
he  encountered  very  determined  opposition. 
Washington  was  particularly  desirous  of  secur- 


IN  THE  CONTINENTAL   CONGRESS.  79 

ing  a  permanent  provision  for  the  officers  by 
the  establishment  of  a  system  of  half-pay,  stat 
ing  that  without  some  such  arrangement  he 
saw  no  hope  whatever  for  the  salvation  of  the 
cause  ;  for  as  things  then  were  the  officers  were 
leaving  day  by  day  ;  and  of  those  who  went 
home  on  furlough  to  the  Eastern  and  Southern 
States,  many,  instead  of  returning,  went  into 
some  lucrative  employment.  This  fact,  by 
the  way,  while  showing  the  difficulties  with 
which  Washington  had  to  deal,  and  therefore 
his  greatness,  since  he  successfully  dealt  with 
them,  at  the  same  time  puts  the  officers  of  the 
Revolution  in  no  very  favorable  light  as  com 
pared  with  their  descendants  at  the  time  of 
the  great  rebellion  ;  and  th«  Continental  Con 
gress  makes  a  still  worse  showing. 

When  Morris  tried  to  push  through  a 
measure  providing  for  half-pay  for  life  he  was 
fought,  tooth  and  nail,  by  many  of  his  col 
leagues,  including,  to  their  lasting  discredit  be 
it  said,  every  delegate  from  New  England. 
The  folly  of  these  ultra-democratic  delegates 
almost  passes  belief.  They  seemed  incapable 
of  learning  how  the  fight  for  liberty  should  be 
made.  Their  leaders,  like  Samuel  Adams  and 
John  Hancock,  did  admirable  service  in  excit 
ing  the  Americans  to  make  the  struggle  ;  but 
once  it  was  begun,  their  function  ended,  and 


80  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

from  thence  onward  they  hampered  almost  as 
much  as  they  helped  the  patriot  cause.  New 
England,  too,  had  passed  through  the  period 
when  its  patriotic  fervor  was  at  white  heat.  It 
still  remained  as  resolute  as  ever  ;  and  if  the 
danger  had  been  once  more  brought  home  to 
its  very  door-sill,  then  it  would  have  risen 
again  as  it  had  risen  before  ;  but  without  the 
spur  of  an  immediate  necessity  it  moved  but 
sluggishly. 

The  New  Englanders  were  joined  by  the 
South  Carolina  delegates.  Morris  was  backed 
by  the  members  from  New  York,  Virginia,  and 
the  other  States,  and  he  won  the  victory,  but 
not  without  being  obliged  to  accept  amend 
ments  that  took  away  some  of  the  good  of  the 
measure.  Half-pay  was  granted,  but  it  was  only 
to  last  for  seven  years  after  the  close  of  the 
war ;  and  the  paltry  bounty  of  eighty  dollars 
was  to  be  given  to  every  soldier  who  served  out 
his  time  to  the  end. 

At  the  same  period  Morris  was  engaged  on 
numerous  other  committees,  dealing  chiefly 
with  the  finances,  or  with  the  remedy  of  abuses 
that  had  crept  into  the  administration  of  the 
army.  In  one  of  his  reports  he  exposed 
thoroughly  the  frightful  waste  in  the  purchase 
and  distribution  of  supplies,  and,  what  was 
much  worse,  the  accompanying  frauds.  These 


IN  THE  CONTINENTAL   CONGRESS.  81 

frauds  bad  become  a  most  serious  evil  ;  Jay,  in 
one  of  his  letters  to  Morris,  had  already  ur 
gently  requested  him  to  turn  his  attention  es 
pecially  to  stopping  the  officers,  in  particular 
those  of  the  staff,  from  themselves  engaging  in 
trade,  on  account  of  the  jobbing  and  swindling 
that  it  produced.  The  shoddy  contractors  of 
the  Civil  War  had  plenty  of  predecessors  in  the 
Revolution. 

When  these  events  occurred,  in  the  spring  of 
1778,  it  was  already  three  years  after  the  fight 
at  Lexington  ;  certainly,  the  continental  armies 
of  that  time  do  not  compare  favorably,  even 
taking  all  difficulties  into  account,  with  the 
Confederate  forces  which,  in  1864,  three  years 
after  the  fall  of  Sumter,  fronted  Grant  and 
Sherman.  The  men  of  the  Revolution  failed 
to  show  the  capacity  to  organize  for  fighting 
purposes,  and  the  ability  to  bend  all  energies 
towards  the  attainment  of  a  given  end,  which 
their  great-grandsons  of  the  Civil  War,  both  at 
the  North  and  the  South,  possessed.  Yet,  after 
all,  their  very  follies  sprang  from  their  virtues, 
from  their  inborn  love  of  freedom,  and  their 
impatience  of  the  control  of  outsiders.  So 
fierce  had  they  been  in  their  opposition  to  the 
rule  of  foreigners  that  they  were  now  hardly 
willing  to  submit  to  being  ruled  by  them 
selves  ;  they  had  seen  power  so  abused  that 


82  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

they  feared  its  very  use  ;  they  were  anxious  to 
assert  their  independence  of  all  mankind,  even 
of  each  other.  Stubborn,  honest,  and  fearless, 
they  were  taught  with  difficulty,  and  only  by 
the  grinding  logic  of  an  imperious  necessity, 
that  it  was  no  surrender  of  their  freedom  to 
submit  to  rulers  chosen  by  themselves,  through 
whom  alone  that  freedom  could  be  won.  They 
had  not  yet  learned  that  right  could  be  en 
forced  only  by  might,  that  union  was  to  the 
full  as  important  as  liberty,  because  it  was  the 
prerequisite  condition  for  the  establishment 
and  preservation  of  liberty. 

But  if  the  Americans  of  the  Revolution  were 
not  perfect,  how  their  faults  dwindle  when  we 
stand  them  side  by  side  with  their  European 
compeers  !  What  European  nation  then  brought 
forth  rulers  as  wise  and  pure  as  our  statesmen, 
or  masses  as  free  and  self-respecting  as  our 
people  ?  There  was  far  more  swindling,  jobbing, 
cheating,  and  stealing  in  the  English  army  than 
in  ours ;  the  British  king  and  his  ministers 
need  no  criticism ;  and  the  outcome  of  the  war 
proves  that  their  nation  as  a  whole  was  less 
resolute  than  our  own.  As  for  the  other  Euro 
pean  powers,  the  faults  of  our  leaders  sink  out 
of  sight  when  matched  against  the  ferocious 
frivolity  of  the  French  noblesse,  or  the  ignoble, 
sordid,  bloody  baseness  of  those  swinish  German 


IN  THE  CONTINENTAL  CONGRESS.  83 

kinglets  who  let  out  their  subjects  to  do  hired 
murder,  and  battened  on  the  blood  and  sweat 
of  the  wretched  beings  under  them,  until  the 
whirlwind  of  the  French  Revolution  swept 
their  carcasses  from  off  the  world  they  cum 
bered. 

We  must  needs  give  all  honor  to  the  men 
who  founded  our  Commonwealth  ;  only  in  so 
doing  let  us  remember  that  they  brought  into 
being  a  government  under  which  their  children 
were  to  grow  better  and  not  worse. 

Washington  at  once  recognized  in  Morris  a 
man  whom  he  could  trust  in  every  way,  and 
on  whose  help  he  could  rely  in  other  matters 
besides  getting  his  officers  half -pay.  The 
young  New  Yorker  was  one  of  the  great  Vir 
ginian's  warmest  supporters  in  Congress,  and 
took  the  lead  in  championing  his  cause  at  every 
turn.  He  was  the  leader  in  putting  down 
intrigues  like  that  of  the  French-Irish  adven 
turer  Conway,  his  ready  tongue  and  knowl 
edge  of  parliamentary  tactics,  no  less  than  his 
ability,  rendering  him  the  especial  dread  and 
dislike  of  the  anti-Washington  faction. 

Washington  wrote  to  Morris  very  freely,  and 
in  one  of  his  letters  complained  of  the  conduct 
of  some  of  the  officers  who  wished  to  resign 
when  affairs  looked  dark  and  to  be  reinstated 


84  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

as  soon   as  they   brightened   a   little.     Morris 
replied  with  one  of  his  bright  caustic  letters, 
sparing   his   associates    very  little,   their  pom 
pous  tediousness  and  hesitation  being  peculiarly 
galling  to  a  man  so  far-seeing  and  so  prompt  to 
make  up  his  mind.     He  wrote  :  "  We  are  going 
on  with  the  regimental  arrangements  as  fast  as 
possible,  and  I  think  the  day  begins  to  appear 
with  respect  to  that  business.     Had  our  Saviour 
addressed  a  chapter  to  the  rulers  of  mankind, 
as  he  did  many  to  the  subjects,  I  am  persuaded 
his  good  sense  would  have  dictated  this  text  : 
Be  not  wise  overmuch.     Had  the  several  mem 
bers  who  compose  our  multifarious  body  been 
only  wise  enough,  our  business  would  long  since 
have  been  completed.     But  our  superior  abili 
ties,  or  the  desire  of  appearing  to  possess  them, 
lead  us  to  such  exquisite  tediousness  of  debate 
that  the  most  precious  moments  pass  unheeded 
away.  ...  As   to    what   you   mention   of  the 
extraordinary  demeanor  of  some  gentlemen,  I 
cannot  but  agree  with  you  that  such  conduct 
is  not  the  most  honorable.     But,  on  the  other 
hand,  you  must  allow  that  it  is  the  most  safe, 
and  certainly  you  are  not  to  learn  that,  how 
ever  ignorant   of  that  happy  art  in  your  own 
person,  the  bulk  of  us  bipeds  know  well  how 
to  balance  solid  pudding  against  empty  praise. 
There  are  other   things,    my   dear   sir,   beside 
virtue,  which  are  their  own  reward." 


IN  THE    CONTINENTAL  CONGRESS.  85 

Washington  chose  Morris  as  his  confidential 
friend  and  agent  to  bring  privately  before  Con 
gress  a  matter  in  reference  to  which  he  did  not 
consider  it  politic  to  write  publicly.  He  was 
at  that  time  annoyed  beyond  measure  by  the 
shoals  of  foreign  officers  who  were  seeking  em 
ployment  in  the  army,  and  he  wished  Congress 
to  stop  giving  them  admission  to  the  service. 
These  foreign  officers  were  sometimes  honorable 
men,  but  more  often  adventurers ;  with  two  or 
three  striking  exceptions  they  failed  to  do  as 
well  as  officers  of  native  birth ;  and,  as  later  in 
the  Civil  War,  so  in  the  Revolution,  it  appeared 
that  Americans  could  be  best  commanded  by 
Americans.  Washington  had  the  greatest  dis 
like  for  these  adventurers,  stigmatizing  them 
as  "  men  who  in  the  first  instance  tell  you  that 
they  wish  for  nothing  more  than  the  honor  of 
serving  in  so  glorious  a  cause  as  volunteers,  the 
next  day  solicit  rank  without  pay,  the  day  fol 
lowing  want  money  advanced  to  them,  and  in 
the  course  of  a  week  want  further  promotion, 
and  are  not  satisfied  with  anything  you  can 
do  for  them."  He  ended  by  writing :  "  I  do 
most  devoutly  wish  that  we  had  not  a  single 
foreigner  among  us,  except  the  Marquis  de 
Lafayette,  who  acts  upon  very  different  princi 
ples  from  those  which  govern  the  rest."  To 
Lafayette,  indeed,  America  owes  as  much  as  to 


86  GODVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

any  of  her  own  children,  for  his  devotion  to  us 
was  as  disinterested  and  sincere  as  it  was  effec 
tive  ;  and  it  is  a  pleasant  thing  to  remember 
that  we,  in  our  turn,  not  only  repaid  him 
materially,  but,  what  he  valued  far  more,  that 
our  whole  people  yielded  him  all  his  life  long 
the  most  loving  homage  a  man  could  receive. 
No  man  ever  kept  pleasanter  relations  with  a 
people  he  had  helped  than  Lafayette  did  with 
us. 

Morris  replied  to  Washington  that  he  would 
do  all  in  his  power  to  aid  him.  Meanwhile  he 
had  also  contracted  a  very  warm  friendship  for/ 
Greene,  then  newly  appointed  quartermastei 
general  of  the  army,  and  proved  a  most  useful 
ally,  both  in  and  out  of  Congress,  in  helping 
the  general  to  get  his  department  in  good  run 
ning  order,  and  in  extricating  it  from  the 
frightful  confusion  in  which  it  had  previously 
been  plunged. 

He  also  specially  devoted  himself  at  this  time 
to  an  investigation  of  the  finances,  which  were 
in  a  dreadful  condition  ;  and  by  the  ability  with 
which  he  performed  his  very  varied  duties  he 
acquired  such  prominence  that  he  was  given 
the  chairmanship  of  the  most  important  of  all 
the  congressional  committees.  This  was  the 
committee  to  which  was  confided  the  task  of 
conferring  with  the  British  commissioners,  who 


IN  THE  CONTINENTAL   CONGRESS.  87 

had  been  sent  over,  in  the  spring  of  1778,  to 
treat  with  the  Americans,  in  accordance  with 
the  terms  of  what  were  known  as  Lord  North's 
conciliatory  bills.  These  bills  were  two  in 
number,  the  first  giving  up  the  right  of  taxa 
tion,  about  which  the  quarrel  had  originally 
arisen,  and  the  second  authorizing  the  commis 
sioners  to  treat  with  the  revolted  colonies  on  all 
questions  in  dispute.  They  were  introduced  in 
Parliament  on  account  of  the  little  headway 
made  by  the  British  in  subduing  their  former 
subjects,  and  were  pressed  hastily  through  be 
cause  of  the  fear  of  an  American  alliance  with 
France,  which  was  then,  indeed,  almost  con 
cluded. 

Three  years  before,  these  bills  would  have 
achieved  their  end ;  but  now  they  came  by  just 
that  much  time  too  late.  The  embittered  war 
fare  had  lasted  long  enough  entirely  to  destroy 
the  old  friendly  feelings ;  and  the  Americans 
having  once  tasted  the  "  perilous  pleasure "  of 
freedom,  having  once  stretched  out  their  arms 
and  stood  before  the  world's  eyes  as  their  own 
masters,  it  was  certain  that  they  would  never 
forego  their  liberty,  no  matter  with  what 
danger  it  was  fraught,  no  matter  how  light  the 
yoke,  or  how  kindly  the  bondage,  by  which  it 
was  to  be  replaced. 
7  Two  days  after  the  bills  were  received,  Morris 


88  GODVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

drew  up  and  presented  his  report,  which,  was 
unanimously  adopted  by  Congress.  Its  tenor 
can  be  gathered  from  its  summing  up,  which 
declared  that  the  indispensable  preliminaries  to 
any  treaty  would  have  to  be  the  withdrawal  of 
all  the  British  fleets  and  armies,  and  the  ac 
knowledgment  of  the  independence  of  the 
United  States ;  and  it  closed  by  calling  on  the 
several  States  to  furnish  without  delay  their 
quotas  of  troops  for  the  coming  campaign. 

This  decisive  stand  was  taken  when  America 
was  still  without  allies  in  the  contest ;  but  ten 
days  afterwards  messengers  came  to  Congress, 
bearing  copies  of  the  treaty  with  France.  It 
was  ratified  forthwith,  and  again  Morris  was 
appointed  chairman  of  a  committee,  this  time 
to  issue  an  address  on  the  subject  to  the  Amer 
ican  people  at  large.  He  penned  this  address 
himself,  explaining  fully  the  character  of  the 
crisis,  and  going  briefly  over  the  events  that 
had  led  to  it ;  and  shortly  afterwards  he  drew 
up,  on  behalf  of  Congress,  a  sketch  of  all  the 
proceedings  in  reference  to  the  British  commis 
sioners,  under  the  title  of  "  Observations  on  the 
American  Revolution,"  giving  therein  a  mas 
terly  outline  not  only  of  the  doings  of  Congress 
in  the  particular  matter  under  consideration, 
but  also  an  account  of  the  causes  of  the  war, 
of  the  efforts  of  the  Americans  to  maintain 


IN  THE  CONTINENTAL  CONGRESS.  89 

peace,  and  of  the  chief  events  that  had  taken 
place,  as  well  as  a  comparison  between  the  con 
trasting  motives  and  aims  of  the  contestants. 

Morris  was  one  of  the  committee  appointed 
to  receive  the  French  minister,  M.  Gerard. 
Immediately  afterwards  he  was  also  selected  by 
Congress  to  draft  the  instructions  which  were 
to  be  sent  to  Franklin,  the  American  minister 
at  the  court  of  Versailles.  As  a  token  of  the 
closeness  of  our  relations  with  France,  he  was 
requested  to  show  these  instructions  to  M. 
Gerard,  which  he  accordingly  did  ;  and  some 
interesting  features  of  the  conversation  between 
the  two  men  have  been  preserved  for  us  in  the 
despatches  of  Gerard  to  the  French  court. 
The  Americans  were  always  anxious  to  un 
dertake  the  conquest  of  Canada,  although 
Washington  did  not  believe  the  scheme  feas 
ible  ;  and  the  French  strongly,  although  se 
cretly,  opposed  it,  as  it  was  their  policy  from 
the  beginning  that  Canada  should  remain  Eng 
lish.  Naturally  the  French  did  not  wish  to  see 
America  transformed  into  a  conquering  power, 
a  menace  to  themselves  and  to  the  Spaniards 
as  well  as  to  the  English  ;  nor  can  they  be 
criticised  for  feeling  in  this  way,  or  taunted 
with  acting  only  from  motives  of  self-interest. 
It  is  doubtless  true  that  their  purposes  in  going 
into  the  war  were  mixed ;  they  unquestionably 


90  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

wished  to  benefit  themselves,  and  to  hurt 
their  old  and  successful  rival ;  but  it  is  equally 
unquestionable  that  they  were  also  moved  by 
a  generous  spirit  of  sympathy  and  admiration 
for  the  struggling  colonists.  It  would,  how 
ever,  have  been  folly  to  let  this  sympathy  blind 
them  to  the  consequences  that  might  ensue  to  all 
Europeans  having  possessions  in  America,  if  the 
Americans  should  become  not  only  independent, 
but  also  aggressive  ;  and  it  was  too  much  to 
expect  them  to  be  so  far-sighted  as  to  see  that, 
once  independent,  it  was  against  the  very  na 
ture  of  things  that  the  Americans  should  not 
be  aggressive,  and  impossible  that  they  should 
be  aught  but  powerful  and  positive  instru 
ments,  both  in  their  own  persons  and  by  their 
example,  in  freeing  the  whole  western  continent 
from  European  control. 

Accordingly  M.  Gerard  endeavored,  though 
without  success,  to  prevail  on  Morris  not  to 
mention  the  question  of  an  invasion  of  Canada 
in  the  instructions  to  Franklin.  He  also 
warned  the  American  of  the  danger  of  alarm 
ing  Spain  by  manifesting  a  wish  to  encroach 
on  its  territory  in  the  Mississippi  valley,  men 
tioning  and  condemning  the  attitude  taken  by 
several  members  of  Congress  to  the  effect  that 
the  navigation  of  the  Mississippi  should  belong 
equally  to  the  English  and  Americans. 


IN  THE  CONTINENTAL   CONGRESS.  91 

Morris's  reply  showed  how  little  even  the 
most  intelligent  American  of  that  time  — 
especially  if  he  came  from  the  Northern  or 
Eastern  States  —  could  appreciate  the  destiny 
of  his  country.  He  stated  that  his  colleagues 
favored  restricting  the  growth  of  our  country 
to  the  south  and  west,  and  believed  that  the 
navigation  of  the  Mississippi,  from  the  Ohio 
down,  should  belong  exclusively  to  the  Span 
iards,  as  otherwise  the  western  settlements 
springing  up  in  the  valley  of  the  Ohio,  and  on 
the  shores  of  the  Great  Lakes,  would  not  only 
domineer  over  Spain,  but  also  over  the  United 
States,  and  would  certainly  render  themselves 
independent  in  the  end.  He  further  said  that 
some  at  least  of  those  who  were  anxious  to 
secure  the  navigation  of  the  Mississippi,  were 
so  from  interested  motives,  having  money  ven 
tures  in  the  establishments  along  the  river. 
However,  if  he  at  this  time  failed  fully  to  grasp 
his  country's  future,  he  was  later  on  one  of  the 
first  in  the  Northern  States  to  recognize  it ; 
and  once  he  did  see  it  he  promptly  changed, 
and  became  the  strongest  advocate  of  our  ter 
ritorial  expansion. 

Accompanying  his  instructions  to  Franklin, 
Morris  sent  a  pamphlet  entitled  "  Observa 
tions  on  the  Finances  of  America,"  to  be  laid 
before  the  French  ministry.  Practically,  all 


92  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

that  the  pamphlet  amounted  to  was  a  most 
urgent  begging  letter,  showing  that  our  own 
people  could  not,  or  would  not,  either  pay 
taxes,  or  take  up  a  domestic  loan,  so  that  we 
stood  in  dire  need  of  a  subsidy  from  abroad. 
The  drawing  up  of  such  a  document  could 
hardly  have  been  satisfactory  employment  for 
a  high  spirited  man  who  wished  to  be  proud  of 
his  country. 

All  through  our  negotiations  with  France 
and  England  Morris's  views  coincided  with 
those  of  Washington,  Hamilton,  Jay,  and  the 
others  who  afterwards  became  leaders  of  the 
Federalist  party.  Their  opinions  were  well 
expressed  by  Jay  in  a  letter  to  Morris  written 
about  this  time,  which  ran  :  "  I  view  a  return 
to  the  domination  of  Britain  with  horror,  and 
would  risk  all  for  independence  ;  but  that  point 
ceded,  .  .  .  the  destruction  of  Old  England 
would  hurt  me  ;  I  wish  it  well ;  it  afforded  my 
ancestors  an  asylum  from  persecution."  The 
rabid  American  adherents  of  France  could  not 
understand  such  sentiments,  and  the  more  mean 
spirited  among  them  always  tried  to  injure 
Morris  on  account  of  his  loyalist  relatives,  al 
though  so  many  families  were  divided  in  this 
same  way,  Franklin's  only  son  being  himself 
a  prominent  Tory.  So  bitter  was  this  feeling 
that  when,  later  on,  Morris's  mother,  who  was 


IN  THE   CONTINENTAL   CONGRESS.  93 

within  the  British  lines,  became  very  ill,  he 
actually  had  to  give  up  his  intended  visit  to 
her,  because  of  the  furious  clamor  that  was 
raised  against  it.  He  refers  bitterly,  in  one  of 
his  letters  to  Jay,  to  the  "  malevolence  of  in 
dividuals,"  as  something  he  had  to  expect,  but 
which  he  announced  that  he  would  conquer  by 
so  living  as  to  command  the  respect  of  those 
whose  respect  was  worth  having. 

When,  however,  his  foes  were  of  sufficient 
importance  to  warrant  his  paying  attention  to 
them  individually,  Morris  proved  abundantly 
able  to  take  care  of  himself,  and  to  deal  heav 
ier  blows  than  he  received.  This  was  shown  in 
the  controversy  which  convulsed  Congress  over 
the  conduct  of  Silas  Deane,  the  original  Ameri 
can  envoy  to  France.  Deane  did  not  behave 
very  well,  but  at  first  he  was  certainly  much 
more  sinned  against  than  sinning,  and  Morris 
took  up  his  cause  warmly.  Thomas  Paine,  the 
famous  author  of  "Common  Sense,"  who  was 
secretary  of  the  Committee  of  Foreign  Affairs, 
attacked  Deane  and  his  defenders,  as  well  as 
the  court  of  France,  with  peculiar  venom,  using 
as  weapons  the  secrets  he  became  acquainted 
with  through  his  official  position,  and  which  he 
was  in  honor  bound  not  to  divulge.  For  this 
Morris  had  him  removed  from  his  secretary 
ship,  and  in  the  debate  handled  him  extremely 


94  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

roughly,  characterizing  him  with  contemptuous 
severity  as  "a  mere  adventurer  from  England 
.  .  .  ignorant  even  of  grammar,"  and  ridiculing 
his  pretensions  to  importance.  Paine  was  an 
adept  in  the  art  of  invective  ;  but  he  came  out 
second  best  in  this  encounter,  and  never  forgot 
or  forgave  his  antagonist. 

As  a  rule,  however,  Morris  was  kept  too 
busily  at  work  to  spare  time  for  altercations. 
He  was  chairman  of  three  important  standing 
committees,  those  on  the  commissary,  quarter 
master's,  and  medical  departments,  and  did  the 
whole  business  for  each.  Pie  also  had  more 
than  his  shr/e  of  special  committee  work,  be 
sides  playing  his  full  part  in  the  debates  and 
consultations  of  the  Congress  itself.  Moreover, 
his  salary  was  so  small  that  he  had  to  eke  it 
out  by  the  occasional  practice  of  his  profession. 
He  devoted  himself  especially  to  the  consider 
ation  of  our  finances  and  of  our  foreign  rela 
tions  ;  and,  as  he  grew  constantly  to  possess 
more  and  more  weight  and  influence  in  Con 
gress,  he  was  appointed,  early  in  1779,  as  chair 
man  of  a  very  important  committee,  which  was 
to  receive  communications  from  our  ministers 
abroad,  as  well  as  from  the  French  envoy.  He 
drew  out  its  report,  together  with  the  draft  of 
instructions  to  our  foreign  ministers,  which  it 
recommended.  Congress  accepted  the  first,  and 


IN  THE   CONTINENTAL   CONGRESS.  95 

adopted  the  last,  without  change,  whereby  it 
became  the  basis  of  the  treaty  by  which  we 
finally  won  peace.  In  his  draft  he  had  been 
careful  not  to  bind  down  our  representatives  on 
minor  points,  and  to  leave  them  as  large  lib 
erty  of  action  as  was  possible ;  but  the  main 
issues,  such  as  the  boundaries,  the  navigation 
of  the  Mississippi,  and  the  fisheries,  were  dis 
cussed  at  length  and  in  order. 

At  the  time  this  draft  of  instructions  for  a 
treaty  was  sent  out  there  was  much  demand 
among  certain  members  in  Congress  that  we 
should  do  all  in  our  power  to  make  foreign 
alliances,  and  to  procure  recognitions  of  our  in 
dependence  in  every  possible  quarter.  To  this 
Morris  was  heartily  opposed,  deeming  that  this 
"rage  for  treaties,"  as  lie  called  it,  was  not 
very  dignified  on  our  part.  He  held  rightly  that 
our  true  course  was  to  go  our  own  gait,  without 
seeking  outside  favor,  until  we  had  shown  our 
selves  able  to  keep  our  own  place  among  nations, 
when  the  recognitions  would  come  without  ask 
ing.  Whether  European  nations  recognized  us 
as  a  free  people,  or  not,  was  of  little  moment  so 
long  as  we  ourselves  knew  that  we  had  become 
one  in  law  and  in  fact,  through  the  right  of 
battle  and  the  final  arbitrament  of  the  sword. 

Besides  these  questions  of  national  policy, 
Morris  also  had  to  deal  with  an  irritating 


96  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

matter  affecting  mainly  New  York.     This  was 
the  dispute  of  that  state  with  the  people  of  Ver 
mont,  who  wished  to  form  a  separate  common- 
wealth  of  their  own,  while  New  York  claimed 
that  their  lands  came  within  its  borders.     Even 
the    fear    of    their    common    foe,    the    British, 
against    whom    they    needed    to    employ    their 
utmost  strength,   was  barely  sufficient  to  pre 
vent  the  two  communities  from  indulging  in  a 
small  civil  war  of  their  own  ;  and  they  persisted 
in  pressing  their  rival  claims  upon  the  attention 
of  Congress,  and  clamoring  for  a  decision  from 
that  harassed  and  overburdened  body.    Clinton, 
who  was  much  more  of  a  politician  than  a  states 
man,  led  the  popular  party  in  this  foolish  busi 
ness,   the   majority  of  the  New  Yorkers  being 
apparently  nearly  as  enthusiastic  in  asserting 
their  sovereignty  over  Vermont  as  they  were  in 
declaring  their  independence  of  Britain.    Morris, 
however,  was  very  half-hearted  in  pushing  the 
affair  before  Congress.     He  doubted  if  Congress 
had  the  power,  and  lie  knew  it  lacked  the  will, 
to  move  in  the  matter  at  all ;  and  besides  he 
did  not  sympathize  with  the  position  taken  by 
his  State.     He  was  wise  enough  to  see  that  the 
Vermonters  had  much  of  the  right  on  their  side 
in  addition  to  the  great  fact  of  possession  ;  and 
that  New  York  would  be  probably  unable  to 
employ  force  enough  to  conquer  them.    Clinton 


IN  THE   CONTINENTAL   CONGRESS.  97 

was  a  true  type  of  the  separatist  or  states-rights 
politician  of  that  day  :  he  cared  little  how  the 
national  weal  was  affected  by  the  quarrel  ;  and 
he  was  far  more  anxious  to  bluster  than  to  fight 
over  the  matter,  to  which  end  he  kept  besieging 
the  delegates  in  Congress  with  useless  petitions. 
In  a  letter  to  him  Morris  put  the  case  with  his 
usual  plainness,  telling  him  that  it  was  perfectly 
idle  to  keep  worrying  Congress  to  take  action, 
for  it  would  certainly  not  do  so,  and  if  it  did 
render  a  decision,  the  Vermonters  would  no 
more  respect  it  than  they  would  the  Pope's 
Bull.  He  went  on  to  show  his  characteristic 
contempt  for  half -measures,  and  capacity  for 
striking  straight  at  the  root  of  things:  "  Either 
let  these  people  alone,  or  conquer  them.  I  pre 
fer  the  latter  ;  but  I  doubt  the  means.  If  we 
have  the  means  let  them  be  used,  and  let  Con 
gress  deliberate  and  decide,  or  deliberate  with 
out  deciding, —  it  is  of  no  consequence.  Success 
will  sanctify  every  operation.  ...  If  we  have 
not  the  means  of  conquering  these  people  we 
must  let  them  alone.  We  must  continue  our 
impotent  threats,  or  we  must  make  a  treaty. 
...  If  we  continue  our  threats  they  will  either 
hate  or  despise  us,  and  perhaps  both.  ...  On 
the  whole,  then,  my  conclusion  is  here,  as  on 
most  other  human  affairs,  act  decisively,  fight 
or  submit  —  conquer  or  treat."  Morris  was 


98  GOUVEHNEUR  MORRIS. 

right ;  the  treaty  was' finally  made,  and  Vermont 
became  an  independent  State. 

But  the  small  politicians  of  New  York  would 
not  forgive  him  fof  the  wisdom  and  the  broad 
feeling  of  nationality  he  showed  on  this  and  so 
many  other  questions ;  and  they  defeated  him 
when  he  was  a  candidate  for  reelection  to  Con 
gress  at  the  end  of  1779.  The  charge  they 
urged  against  him  was  that  he  devoted  his  time 
wholly  to  the  service  of  the  nation  at  large,  and 
not  to  that  of  New  York  in  particular ;  his  very 
devotion  to  the  public  business,  which  had  kept 
him  from  returning  to  the  State,  being  brought 
forward  to  harm  him.  Arguments  of  this  kind 
are  common  enough  even  at  the  present  day, 
and  effective  too,  among  that  numerous  class 
of  men  with  narrow  minds  and  selfish  hearts. 
Many  an  able  and  upright  Congressman  since 
Morris  has  been  sacrificed  because  his  constit 
uents  found  he  was  fitted  to  do  the  exact  work 
needed ;  because  he  showed  himself  capable  of 
serving  the  whole  nation,  and  did  not  devote 
his  time  to  advancing  the  interests  of  only  a 
portion  thereof. 


CHAPTER  V. 

FINANCES  :    THE  TREATY   OF  PEACE. 

AT  the  end  of  1779  Morris  was  thus  retired 
to  private  life  ;  and,  having  by  this  time  made 
many  friends  in  Philadelphia,  he  took  up  his 
abode  in  that  city.  His  leaving  Congress  was 
small  loss  to  himself,  as  that  body  was  rapidly 
sinking  into  a  condition  of  windy  decrepitude. 

He  at  once  began  working  at  his  profession, 
and  also  threw  himself  with  eager  zest  into 
every  attainable  form  of  gayety  and  amusement, 
for  he  was  of  a  most  pleasure-loving  tempera 
ment,  very  fond  of  society,  and  a  great  favorite 
in  the  little  American  world  of  wit  and  fashion. 
But  although  in  private  life,  he  nevertheless 
kept  his  grip  on  public  affairs,  and  devoted 
himself  to  the  finances,  which  were  in  a  most 
wretched  state.  He  could  not  keep  out  of  pub 
lic  life ;  he  probably  agreed  with  Jay,  who,  on 
hearing  that  he  was  again  a  private  citizen, 
wrote  him  to  "remember  that  Achilles  made 
no  figure  at  the  spinning-wheel."  At  any  rate, 
as  early  as  February,  1780,  he  came  to  the 


100  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

front  once  more  as  the  author  of  a  series  of 
essays  on  the  finances.  They  were  published 
in  Philadelphia,  and  attracted  the  attention  of 
all  thinking  men  by  their  soundness.  In  fact 
it  was  in  our  monetary  affairs  that  the  key  to 
the  situation  was  to  be  found;  for,  had  we  been 
willing  to  pay  honestly  and  promptly  the  neces 
sary  war  expenses,  we  should  have  ended  the 
struggle  in  short  order.  But  the  niggardliness^ 
as  well  as  the  real  poverty,  of  the  people,  the 
jealousies  of  the  states,  kept  aflame  by  the 
states-rights  leaders  for  their  own  selfish  pur 
poses,  and  the  foolish  ideas  of  most  of  the  con 
gressional  delegates  on  all  money  matters,  com 
bined  to  keep  our  treasury  in  a  pitiable  con 
dition. 

Morris  tried  to  show  the  people  at  large  the 
advantage  of  submitting  to  reasonable  taxation, 
while  at  the  same  time  combating  some  of  the 
theories  entertained  as  well  by  themselves  as  by 
their  congressional  representatives.  Pie  began 
by  discussing  with  great  clearness  what  money 
really  is,  how  far  coin  can  be  replaced  by  paper, 
the  interdependence  of  money  and  credit,  and 
other  elementary  points  in  reference  to  which 
most  of  his  fellow -citizens  seemed  to  possess 
wonderfully  mixed  ideas.  He  attacked  the  ef 
forts  of  Congress  to  make  their  currency  legal 
tender ;  and  then  showed  the  utter  futility  of 


FINANCES:  THE  TREATY  OF  PEACE.       101 

one  of  the  pet  schemes  of  revolutionary  financial 
wisdom,  the  regulation  of  prices  by  law.  Hard 
times,  then  as  now,  always  produced  not  only  a 
large  debtor  class,  but  also  a  corresponding  num 
ber  of  political  demagogues  who  truckled  to 
it ;  and  both  demagogue  and  debtor,  when  they 
clamored  for  laws  which  should  u  relieve  "  the 
latter,  meant  thereby  laws  which  would  enable 
him  to  swindle  his  creditor.  The  people,  more 
over,  liked  to  lay  the  blame  for  their  misfortunes 
neither  on  fate  nor  on  themselves,  but  on  some 
unfortunate  outsider ;  and  they  were  especially 
apt  to  attack  as  "  monopolists  "  the  men  who 
had  purchased  necessary  supplies  in  large  quan 
tities  to  profit  by  their  rise  in  price.  Accord- 
ingly  they  passed  laws  against  them  ;  and  Mor 
ris  showed  in  his  essays  the  unwisdom  of  such 
legislation,  while  not  defending  for  a  moment 
the  men  who  looked  on  the  misfortunes  of  their 
country  solely  as  offering  a  field  for  their  own 
harvesting. 

He  ended  by  drawing  out  an  excellent  scheme 
of  taxation;  but,  unfortunately,  the  people 
were  too  short-sighted  to  submit  to  any  measure 
of  the  sort,  no  matter  how  wise  and  necessary. 
One  of  the  pleas  he  made  for  his  scheme  was, 
that  something  of  the  sort  would  be  absolutely 
necessary  for  the  preservation  of  the  Federal 
Union,  "  which,"  he  wrote,  "  in  my  poor  opin- 


102  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

ion,  will  greatly  depend  upon  the  management 
of  the  revenue."  He  showed  with  his  usual 
clearness  the  need  of  obtaining,  for  financial  as 
well  as  for  all  other  reasons,  a  firmer  union,  as 
the  existing  confederation  bade  fair  to  become, 
as  its  enemies  had  prophesied,  a  rope  of  sand. 
He  also  foretold  graphically  the  misery  that 

would  ensue  —  and  that  actually  did  ensue 

when  the  pressure  from  a  foreign  foe  should 
cease,  and  the  states  should  be  resolved  into  a 
disorderly  league  of  petty,  squabbling  commu 
nities.  In  ending  he  remarked  bitterly  :  "  The 
articles  of  confederation  were  formed  when  the 
attachment  to  Congress  was  warm  and  great. 
The  framers  of  them,  therefore,  seem  to  have 
been  only  solicitous  how  to  provide  against  the 
power  of  that  body,  which,  by  means  of  their 
foresight  and  care,  now  exists  by  mere  courtesy 
and  sufferance." 

Although  Morris  was  not  able  to  convert 
Congress  to  the  ways  of  sound  thinking,  his 
ability  and  clearness  impressed  themselves  on 
all  the  best  men  ;  notably  on  Robert  Morris,  — 
who  was  no  relatifil  of  his,  by  the  way,  —  the 
first  in  the  line  of  American  statesmen  who  have 
been  great  in  finance;  a  man  whose  services  to 
our  treasury  stand  on  a  par,  if  not  with  those 
of  Hamilton,  at  least  with  those  of  Gallatin 
and  John  Sherman.  Congress  had  just  estab- 


FINANCES:  THE  TREATY   OF  PEACE.       103 

lished  four  departments,  with  secretaries  at  the 
head  of  each.  The  two  most  important  were 
the  Departments  of  Foreign  Affairs  and  of 
Finance.  Livingstone  was  given  the  former, 
while  Robert  Morris  received  the  latter;  and 
immediately  afterwards  appointed  Gouverneur 
Morris  as  Assistant  Financier,  at  a  salary  of 
eighteen  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  a  year. 

Morris  accepted  this  appointment,  and  re 
mained  in  office  for  three  years  and  a  half,  until 
the  beginning  of  1785.  He  threw  himself 
heart  and  soul  into  the  work,  helping  his  chief 
in  every  way  ;  and  in  particular  giving  him 
invaluable  assistance  in  the  establishment  of 
the  "  Bank  of  North  America,"  which  Congress 
was  persuaded  to  incorporate, —  an  institution 
which  was  the  first  of  its  kind  in  the  country. 
It  was  of  wonderful  effect  in  restoring  the 
public  credit,  and  was  absolutely  invaluable  in 
the  financial  operations  undertaken  by  the 
secretary. 

When,  early  in  1782,  the  secretary  was  di 
rected  by  Congress,  to  present  to  that  body  a 
report  on  the  foreign  coins  circulating  in  the 
country,  it  was  prepared  and  sent  in  by  Gou 
verneur  Morris,  and  he  accompanied  it  with  a 
plan  for  an  American  coinage.  The  postscript 
was  the  really  important  part  of  the  document, 
and  the  plan  therein  set  forth  was  made  the 


104  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

basis  of  our  present  coinage  system,  although 
not  until  several  years  later,  and  then  only  with 
important  modifications,  suggested,  for  the  most 
part,  by  Jefferson. 

Although  his  plan  was  modified,  it  still 
remains  true  that  Gouverneur  Morris  was  the 
founder  of  our  national  coinage.  He  intro 
duced  the  system  of  decimal  notation,  invented 
the  word  "cent"  to  express  one  of  the  smaller 
coins,  and  nationalized  the  already  familiar 
word  "dollar."  His  plan,  however,  was  a  little 
too  abstruse  for  the  common  mind,  the  unit 
being  made  so  small  that  a  large  sum  would 
have  had  to  be  expressed  in  a  very  great  num 
ber  of  figures,  and  there  being  five  or  six  dif 
ferent  kinds  of  new  coins,  some  of  them  not 
simple  multiples  of  each  other.  Afterwards  he 
proposed  as  a  modification  a  system  of  pounds, 
or  dollars,  and  doits,  the  doit  answering  to  our 
present  mill,  while  providing  also  an  ingenious 
arrangement  by  which  the  money  of  account 
was  to  differ  from  the  money  of  coinage.  Jef 
ferson  changed  the  system  by  grafting  on  it  the 
dollar  as  a  unit,  and  simplifying  it;  and  Ham 
ilton  perfected  it  further. 

To  understand  the  advantage,  as  well  as  the 
boldness,  of  Morris's  scheme,  we  must  keep  in 
mind  the  horrible  condition  of  our  currency  at 
that  time.  We  had  no  proper  coins  of  our 


FINANCES:   THE    TREATY   OF  PEACE.       105 

own  ;  nothing  but  hopelessly  depreciated  paper 
bills,  a  mass  of  copper,  and  some  clipped  and 
counterfeited  gold  and  silver  coin  from  the 
mints  of  England,  France,  Spain,  and  even 
Germany.  Dollars,  pounds,  shillings,  doubloons, 
ducats,  moidores,  joes,  crowns,  pistareens,  cop 
pers,  and  sous,  circulated  indifferently,  and  with 
various  values  in  each  colony.  A  dollar  was 
worth  six  shillings  in  Massachusetts,  eight  in 
New  York,  seven  and  sixpence  in  Pennsylvania, 
six  again  in  Virginia,  eight  again  in  North 
Carolina,  thirty-two  and  a  half  in  South  Caro 
lina,  and  five  in  Georgia.  The  government  it 
self  had  to  resort  to  clipping  in  one  of  its  most 
desperate  straits ;  and  at  last  people  would  m4y 
take  paymentTBy  weight  of  gold  or  silver. 

Morris,  in  his  report,  dwelt  especially  on 
three  points :  first,  that  the  new  money  should 
be  easily  intelligible  to  the  multitude,  and 
should,  therefore,  bear  a  close  relation  to  the 
coins  already  existing,  as  otherwise  its  sudden 
introduction  would  bring  business  to  a  stand 
still,  and  would  excite  distrust  and  suspicion 
everywhere,  particularly  among  the  poorest  and 
most  ignorant,  the  day-laborers,  the  farm  ser 
vants,  and  the  hired  help.  Second,  that  its  low 
est  divisible  sum,  or  unit,  should  be  very  small, 
so  that  the  price  and  the  value  of  little  things 
could  be  made  proportionate  ;  and  third,  that 


106  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

as  far  as  possible  the  money  should  increase 
in  decimal  ratio.  The  Spanish  dollar  was  the 
coin  most  widely  circulated,  while  retaining 
everywhere  about  the  same  value.  Accordingly 
he  took  this,  and  then  sought  for  a  unit  that 
would  go  evenly  into  it,  as  well  as  into  the  va 
rious  shillings,  disregarding  the  hopelessly  aber 
rant  shilling  of  South  Carolina.  Such  a  unit 
was  a  quarter  of  a  grain  of  pure  silver,  equal  to 
the  one  fourteen  hundred  and  fortieth  part  of  a 
dollar ;  it  was  not,  of  course,  necessary  to  have 
it  exactly  represented  in  coin.  On  the  con 
trary,  he  proposed  to  strike  two  copper  pieces, 
respectively  of  five  and  eight  units,  to  be  known 
as  fives  and  eights.  Two  eights  would  then 
make  a  penny  in  Pennsylvania,  and  three  eights 
one  in  Georgia,  while  three  fives  would  make  one 
in  New  York,  and  four  would  make  one  in  Mas 
sachusetts.  Morris's  great  aim  was,  while  estab 
lishing  uniform  coins  for  the  entire  Union,  to 
get  rid  of  the  fractional  remainders  in  translat 
ing  the  old  currencies  into  the  new  ;  and  in  ad 
dition  his  reckoning  adapted  itself  to  the  dif 
ferent  systems  in  the  different  states,  as  well 
as  to  the  different  coins  in  use.  But  he  in 
troduced  an  entirely  new  system  of  coinage, 
and  moreover  used  therein  the  names  of  several 
old  coins  while  giving  them  new  values.  His 
originally  proposed  table  of  currency  was  as 
follows : — 


UNIVERSITY  )] 

FINANCES:   THE   TREATY  0 


One  crown  =  ten  dollars,  or  .     .  10,000  units. 

One  dollar  =  ten  hills,  or  .     .     .•  1,000     " 

One  bill  =  ten  pence,  or    .     .     .  100     " 

One  penny  =  ten  quarters,  or      .  10     " 

One  quarter  :=     ......  1      " 

But  he  proposed  that  for  convenience  other 
coins  should  be  struck,  like  the  copper  five  and 
eight  above  spoken  of,  and  he  afterwards  altered 
his  names.  He  then  called  the  bill  of  one  hun 
dred  units  a  cent,  making  it  consist  of  twenty- 
five  grains  of  silver  and  two  of  copper,  being 
thus  the  lowest  silver  coin.  Five  cents  were  to 
make  a  quint,  and  ten  a  mark. 

Congress,  according  to  its  custom,  received 
the  report,  applauded  it,  and  did  nothing  in  the 
matter.  Shortly  afterwards,  however,  Jefferson 
took  it  up,  when  the  whole  subject  was  referred 
to  a  committee  of  which  he  was  a  member.  He 
highly  approved  of  Morris's  plan,  and  took  from 
it  the  idea  of  a  decimal  system,  and  the  use  of 
the  words  "dollar"  and  "  cent."  But  he  consid 
ered  Morris's  unit  too  small,  and  preferred  to 
take  as  his  own  the  Spanish  dollar,  which  was 
already  known  to  all  the  people,  its  value  being 
uniform  and  well  understood.  Then,  by  keep 
ing  strictly  to  the  decimal  system,  and  dividing 
the  dollar  into  one  hundred  parts,  he  got  cents 
for  our  fractional  currency.  He  thus  introduced 
a  simpler  system  than  that  of  Morris,  with  an 


108  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

existing  and  well -understood  unit,  instead  of 
an  imaginary  one  that  would  have  to  be,  for 
the  first  time,  brought  to  the  knowledge  of  the 
people,  and  which  might  be  adopted  only  with 
reluctance.  On  the  other  hand,  Jefferson's 
system  failed  entirely  to  provide  for  the  ex 
tension  of  the  old  currencies  in  the  terms  of 
the  new  without  the  use  of  fractions.  On  this 
account  Morris  vehemently  opposed  it,  but  it 
was  nevertheless  adopted.  He  foretold,  what 
actually  came  to  pass,  that  the  people  would  be 
very  reluctant  to  throw  away  their  local  moneys 
in  order  to  take  up  a  general  money  which  bore 
no  special  relation  to  them.  For  half  a  century 
afterwards  the  people  clung  to  their  absurd 
shillings  and  sixpences,  the  government  itself, 
in  its  post-office  transactions,  being  obliged  to 
recognize  the  obsolete  terms  in  vogue  in  certain 
localities.  Some  curious  pieces  circulated  freely 
up  to  the  time  of  the  Civil  War.  Still,  Jeffer 
son's  plan  worked  admirably  in  the  end. 

All  the  time  he  was  working  so  hard  at  the 
finances,  Morris  nevertheless  continued  to  enjoy 
himself  to  the  full  in  the  society  of  Philadel 
phia.  Imperious,  light-hearted,  good-looking, 
well-dressed,  he  ranked  as  a  wit  among  men,  as 
a  beau  among  women.  He  was  equally  sought 
for  dances  and  dinners.  He  was  a  fine  scholar 
and  a  polished  gentleman ;  a  capital  story- 


FINANCES:   THE  TREATY  OF  PEACE.      109 

teller;  and  bad  just  a  touch  of  erratic  levity 
that  served  to  render  him  still  more  charming. 
Occasionally  he  showed  whimsical  peculiarities, 
usually  about  very  small  things,  that  brought 
him  into  trouble  ;  and  one  such  freak  cost  him 
a  serious  injury.  In  his  capacity  of  young  man 
of  fashion,  he  used  to  drive  about  town  in  a 
pliaeton  with  a  pair  of  small,  spirited  horses  ; 
and  because  of  some  whim,  he  would  not  allow 
the  groom  to  stand  at  their  heads.  So  one 
day  they  took  fright,  ran,  threw  him  out,  and 
broke  his  leg.  The  leg  had  to  be  amputated, 
and  he  was  ever  afterwards  forced  to  wear  a 
wooden  one.  However,  he  took  his  loss  with 
most  philosophic  cheerfulness,  and  even  bore 
with  equanimity  the  condolences  of  those  ex 
asperating  individuals,  of  a  species  by  no  means 
peculiar  to  revolutionary  times,  who  endeav 
ored  to  prove  to  him  the  manifest  falsehood 
that  such  an  accident  was  "  all  for  the  best." 
To  one  of  these  dreary  gentlemen  he  responded, 
with  disconcerting  vivacity,  that  his  visitor  had 
so  handsomely  argued  the  advantage  of  being 
entirely  legless  as  to  make  him  almost  tempted 
to  part  with  his  remaining  limb  ;  and  to  an 
other  he  announced  that  at  least  there  was  the 
compensation  that  he  would  be  a  steadier  man 
with  one  leg  than  with  two.  Wild  accounts 
of  the  accident  got  about,  which  rather  irri- 


110  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

tated  him,  and  in  answer  to  a  letter  from  Jay 
he  wrote :  "  I  suppose  it  was  Deane  who  wrote 
to  you  from  France  about  the  loss  of  my  leg. 
His  account  is  facetious.  Let  it  pass.  The 
leg  is  gone,  and  there  is  an  end  of  the  mat 
ter."  His  being  crippled  did  not  prevent  him 
from  going  about  in  society  very  nearly  as 
much  as  ever ;  and  society  in  Philadelphia  was 
at  the  moment  gayer  than  in  any  other  Ameri 
can  city.  Indeed  Jay,  a  man  of  Puritanic  mo 
rality,  wrote  to  Morris  somewhat  gloomily  to 
inquire  about  "  the  rapid  progress  of  luxury  at 
Philadelphia ; "  to  which  his  younger  friend, 
who  highly  appreciated  the  good  things  of  life, 
replied  light-heartedly:  "With  respect  to  our 
taste  for  luxury,  do  not  grieve  about  it.  Lux 
ury  is  not  so  bad  a  thing  as  it  is  often  sup 
posed  to  be ;  and  if  it  were,  still  we  must  fol 
low  the  course  of  things,  and  turn  to  advantage 
what  exists,  since  we  have  not  the  power  to 
annihilate  or  create.  The  very  definition  of 
'luxury'  is  as  difficult  as  the  suppression  of  it." 
In  another  letter  he  remarked  that  he  thought 
there  were  quite  as  many  knaves  among  the 
men  who  went  on  foot  as  there  were  among 
those  who  drove  in  carriages. 

Jay  at  this  time,  having  been  successively  a 
member  of  the  Continental  Congress,  the  New 
York  Legislature,  and  the  State  Constitutional 


FINANCES:   THE  TREATY  OF  PEACE.       Ill 

Convention,  having  also  been  the  first  chief 
justice  of  his  native  state,  and  then  presi 
dent  of  the  Continental  Congress,  had  been 
sent  as  our  minister  to  Spain.  Morris  alwa}Ts 
kept  up  an  intimate  correspondence  with  him. 
It  is  noticeable  that  the  three  great  revolu 
tionary  statesmen  from  New  York,  Hamilton, 
Jay,  and  Morris,  always  kept  on  good  terms, 
and  always  worked  together;  while  the  friend 
ship  between  two,  Jay  and  Morris,  was  very 
close. 

The  two  men,  in  their  correspondence,  now 
and  then  touched  on  other  than  state  matters. 
One  of  Jay's  letters  which  deals  with  the  edu 
cation  of  his  children  would  be  most  healthful 
reading  for  those  Americans  of  the  present  day 
who  send  their  children  to  be  brought  up 
abroad  in  Swiss  schools,  or  English  and  German 
universities.  He  writes  :  "  I  think  the  youth  of 
every  free,  civilized  country  should  be  educated 
in  it,  and  not  permitted  to  travel  out  of  it 
until  age  has  made  them  so  cool  and  firm  as  to 
retain  their  national  and  moral  impressions. 
American  youth  may  possibly  form  proper  and 
perhaps  useful  friendships  in  European  semi 
naries,  but  I  think  not  so  probably  as  among 
their  fellow-citizens,  with  whom  they  are  to 
grow  up,  whom  it  will  be  useful  for  them  to 
know  and  be  early  known  to,  and  with  whom 


112  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

they  are  to  be  engaged  in  the  business  of  active 
life.  ...  I  do  not  hesitate  to  prefer  an  Ameri 
can  education."  The  longer  Jay  stayed  away, 
the  more  devoted  he  became  to  America.  He 
had  a  good,  hearty,  honest  contempt  for  the 
miserable  "  cosmopolitanism  "  so  much  affected 
by  the  feebler  folk  of  fashion.  As  he  said  he 
"  could  never  become  so  far  a  citizen  of  the 
world  as  to  view  every  part  of  it  with  equal 
regard,"  for  "his  affections  were  deep-rooted 
in  America,"  and  he  always  asserted  that  he 
had  never  seen  anything  in  Europe  to  cause 
him  to  abate  his  prejudices  in  favor  of  his  own 
land. 

Jay  had  a  very  hard  time  at  the  Spanish 
court,  which,  be  wrote  Morris,  had  "  little 
money,  less  wisdom,  and  no  credit."  Spain,  al 
though  fighting  England,  was  bitterly  jealous 
of  the  United  States,  fearing  most  justly  our 
aggressive  spirit,  and  desiring  to  keep  the 
lower  Mississippi  valley  entirely  under  its  own 
control.  Jay,  a  statesman  of  intensely  national 
spirit,  was  determined  to  push  our  boundaries 
as  far  westward  as  possible ;  he  insisted  on 
their  reaching  to  the  Mississippi,  and  on  our 
having  the  right  to  navigate  that  stream. 
Morris  did  not  agree  with  him,  and  on  this 
subject,  as  has  been  already  said,  he  for  once 
showed  less  than  his  usual  power  of  insight 


FINANCES:   THE  TREATY  OF  PEACE.       113 

into  the  future.  He  wrote  Jay  that  it  was 
absurd  to  quarrel  about  a  country  inhabited 
only  by  red  men,  and  to  claim  "  a  territory  we 
cannot  occupy,  a  navigation  we  cannot  enjoy." 
He  also  ventured  the  curiously  false  prediction 
that,  if  the  territory  beyond  the  Alleghanies 
should  ever  be  filled  up,  it  would  be  by  a  pop 
ulation  drawn  from  the  whole  world,  not  one 
hundredth  part  of  it  American,  which  would 
immediately  become  an  independent  and  rival 
nation.  However,  he  could  not  make  Jay 
swerve  a  handsbreadth  from  his  position  about 
our  western  boundaries ;  though  on  every  other 
point  the  two  were  in  hearty  accord. 

In  relating  and  forecasting  the  military 
situation,  Morris  was  more  happy.  He  was 
peculiarly  interested  in  Greene,  and  from  the 
outset  foretold  the  final  success  of  his  South 
ern  campaign.  In  a  letter  written  March  31, 
1781,  after  the  receipt  of  the  news  of  the 
battle  of  Guilford  Court-house,  he  describes 
to  Jay  Greene's  forces  and  prospects.  His 
troops  included,  he  writes,  "  from  1,500  to  2,000 
continentals,  many  of  them  raw,  and  some 
what  more  of  militia  than  regular  troops,  —  the 
whole  of  these  almost  in  a  state  of  nature,  and 
of  whom  it  ought  to  be  said,  as  by  Hamlet  to 
Horatio,  l  Thou  hast  no  other  revenue  but  thy 
good  spirits  to  feed  and  clothe  thee.'  "  The 


114  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

militia  he  styled  the  "fruges  consumer e  nati 
of  an  army."  He  then  showed  the  necessity 
of  the  battle  being  fought,  on  account  of  the 
fluctuating  state  of  the  militia,  the  incapacity 
of  the  state  governments  to  help  themselves, 
the  poverty  of  the  country  ("  so  that  the  very 
teeth  of  the  enemy  defend  them,  especially  in 
retreat,"),  and  above  all,  because  a  defeat  was 
of  little  consequence  to  us,  while  it  would  ruin 
the  enemy.  He  wrote :  "  There  is  no  loss  in 
fighting  away  two  or  three  hundred  men  who 
would  go  home  if  they  were  not  put  in  the 
way  of  being  knocked  on  the  head.  .  .  .  These 
are  unfeeling  reflections.  I  would  apologize 
for  them  to  any  one  who  did  not  know  that  I 
have  at  least  enough  of  sensibility.  The  gush 
of  sentiment  will  not  alter  the  nature  of  tilings, 
and  the  business  of  the  statesman  is  more  to 
reason  than  to  feel."  Morris  was  always  con 
fident  that  we  should  win  in  the  end,  and 
sometimes  thought  a  little  punishment  really 
did  our  people  good.  When  Cornwallis  was  in 
Virginia  he  wrote  :  "  The  enemy  are  scourging 
the  Virginians,  at  least  those  of  Lower  Vir 
ginia.  This  is  distressing,  but  will  have  some 
good  consequences.  In  the  mean  time  the 
delegates  of  Virginia  make  as  many  lamen 
tations  as  ever  Jeremiah  did,  and  to  as  good 
purpose  perhaps." 


FINANCES:  THE  TREATY  OF  PEACE.   115 

The  war  was  drawing  to  an  end.  Great 
Britain  had  begun  the  struggle  with  every 
thing —  allies,  numbers,  wealth  —  in  her  favor  ; 
but  now,  towards  the  close,  the  odds  were  all 
the  other  way.  The  French  were  struggling 
with  her  on  equal  terms  for  the  mastery  of  the 
seas  ;  the  Spaniards  were  helping  the  French, 
and  were  bending  every  energy  to  carry  through 
successfully  the  great  siege  of  Gibraltar ;  the 
Dutch  had  joined  their  ancient  enemies,  and 
their  fleet  fought  a  battle  with  the  English, 
which,  for  bloody  indecisiveness,  rivaled  the' ac 
tions  when  Van  Tromp  and  De  Ruyter  held  the 
Channel  against  Blake  and  Monk.  In  India 
the  name  of  Hyder  Ali  had  become  a  very 
nightmare  of  horror  to  the  British.  In  Amer- 

O 

ica,  the  centre  of  the  war,  the  day  had  gone 
conclusively  against  the  Island  folk.  Greene 
had  doggedly  fought  and  marched  his  way 
through  the  Southern  States  with  his  ragged, 
under-fed,  badly  armed  troops  ;  lie  had  been 
beaten  in  three  obstinate  battles,  had  each  time 
inflicted  a  greater  relative  loss  than  he  received, 
and,  after  retiring  in  good  order  a  short  dis 
tance,  had  always  ended  by  pursuing  his  lately 
victorious  foes ;  at  the  close  of  the  campaign  he 
had  completely  reconquered  the  Southern  States 
by  sheer  capacity  for  standing  punishment,  and 
had  cooped  up  the  remaining  British  force  in 


116  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

Charleston.  In  the  Northern  States  the  British 
held  Newport  and  New  York,  but  could  not 
penetrate  elsewhere ;  while  ut  Yorktown  their 
ablest  general  was  obliged  to  surrender  his 
whole  army  to  the  overwhelming  force  brought 
against  him  by  Washington's  masterly  strategy. 

Yet  England,  hemmed  in  by  the  'ring  of  her 
foes,  fronted  them  all  with  a  grand  courage.  In 
her  veins  the  Berserker  blood  was  up,  and  she 
hailed  each  new  enemy  with  grim  delight,  ex 
erting  to  the  full  her  warlike  strength.  Single- 
handed  she  kept  them  all  at  bay,  and  repaid 
with  crippling  blows  the  injuries  they  had  done 
her.  In  America  alone  the  tide  ran  too  strongly 
to  be  turned.  But  Holland  was  stripped  of  all 
her  colonies ;  in  the  East,  Sir  Eyre  Coote  beat 
down  Hyder  AH,  and  taught  Moslem  and 
Hindoo  alike  that  they  could  not  shake  off  the 
grasp  of  the  iron  hands  that  held  India.  Rod 
ney  won  back  for  his  country  the  supremacy  of 
the  ocean  in  that  great  sea-fight  where  he  shat 
tered  the  splendid  French  navy  ;  and  the  long 
siege  of  Gibraltar  closed  with  the  crushing  over 
throw  of  the  assailants.  So,  with  bloody  honor, 
England  ended  the  most  disastrous  war  she  had 
ever  waged. 

The  war  had  brought  forth  many  hard  fight 
ers,  but  only  one  great  commander, — Washing 
ton.  For  the  rest,  on  land,  Cornwall  is,  Greene, 


FINANCES:  THE  TREATY  OF  PEACE.       117 

Rawdon,  and  possibly  Lafayette  and  Rocham- 
beau,  might  all  rank  as  fairly  good  generals, 
probably  in  the  order  named,  although  many 
excellent  critics  place  Greene  first.  At  sea 
Rodney  and  the  Bailli  de  Suffren  won  the 
honors ;  the  latter  stands  beside  Duquesne 
and  Tourville  in  the  roll  of  French  admirals  ; 
while  Rodney  was  a  true  latter-day  buccaneer, 
as  fond  of  fighting  as  of  plundering,  and  a  first- 
rate  hand  at  both.  Neither  ranks  with  such 
mighty  sea-chiefs  as  Nelson,  nor  yet  with  Blake, 
Farragut,  or  Tegethof. 

All  parties  were  tired  of  the  war ;  peace  was 
essential  to  all.  But  of  all,  America  was  most 
resolute  to  win  what  she  had  fought  for ;  and 
America  had  been  the  most  successful  so  far. 
English  historians  —  even  so  generally  impar 
tial  a  writer  as  Mr.  Lecky  —  are  apt  greatly  to 
exaggerate  our  relative  exhaustion,  and  try  to 
prove  it  by  quoting  from  the  American  leaders 
every  statement  that  shows  despondency  and 
suffering.  If  they  applied  the  same  rule  to 
their  own  side,  they  would  come  to  the  conclu 
sion  that  the  British  empire  was  at  that  time 
on  the  brink  of  dissolution.  Of  course  we  had 
suffered  very  heavily,  and  had  blundered  badly  ; 
but  in  both  respects  we  were  better  off  than 
our  antagonists.  Mr.  Lecky  is  right  in  bestow 
ing  unstinted  praise  on  our  diplomatists  for  the 


118  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

hardihood  and  success  with  "which  they  insisted 
on  all  our  demands  being  granted  ;  but  he  is 
wrong  when  he  says  or  implies  that  the  mili 
tary  situation  did  not  warrant  their  attitude. 
Of  all  the  contestants,  America  was  the  most 
willing  to  continue  the  fight  rather  than  yield 
her  rights.  Mori-is  expressed  the  general  feel 
ing  when  he  wrote  to  Jay,  on  August  6,  1782 : 
"  Nobody  will  be  thankful  for  any  peace  but  a 
very  good  one.  This  they  should  have  thought 
on  who  made  war  with  the  Republic.  I  am 
among  the  number  who  would  be  extremely 
ungrateful  for  the  grant  of  a  bad  peace.  My 
public  and  private  character  will  both  concert 
to  render  the  sentiment  coming  from  me  un 
suspected.  Judge,  then,  of  others,  judge  of  the 
many-headed  fool  who  can  feel  no  more  than 
his  own  sorrowing.  ...  I  wish  that  while  the 
war  lasts  it  may  be  real  war,  and  that  when 
peace  comes  it  may  be  real  peace."  As  to  our 
military  efficiency,  we  may  take  Washington's 
word  (in  a  letter  to  Jay  of  October  18,  1782)  : 
"  I  am  certain  it  will  afford  you  pleasure  to 
know  that  our  army  is  better  organized,  dis 
ciplined,  and  clothed  than  it  has  been  at  any 
period  since  the  commencement  of  the  war. 
This  you  may  be  assured  is  the  fact." 

Another   mistake    of    English    historians  — 
again  likewise  committed  by  Mr.  Lecky —  comes 


FINANCES:  THE  TREATY  OF  PEACE.   119 

in  their  laying  so  much  stress  on  the  help  ren 
dered  to  the  Americans  by  their  allies,  while  at 
the  same  time  speaking  as  if  England  had  none. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  England  would  have  stood 
no  chance  at  all  had  the  contest  been  strictly 
confined  to  British  troops  on  the  one  hand,  and 
to  the  rebellious  colonists  on  the  other.  There 
were  more  German  auxiliaries  in  the  British 
ranks  than  there  were  French  allies  in  the 
American  ;  the  loyalists,  including  the  regu 
larly  enlisted  loyalists  as  well  as  the  militia  who 
took  part  in  the  various  Tory  uprisings,  were 
probably  more  numerous  still.  The  withdrawal 
of  all  Hessians,  Tories,  and  Indians  from  the 
British  army  would  have  been  cheaply  pur 
chased  by  the  loss  of  our  own  foreign  allies. 

The  European  powers  were  even  a  shade 
more  anxious  for  peace  than  we  were ;  and  to 
conduct  the  negotiations  for  our  side,  we  chose 
three  of  our  greatest  statesmen,  —  Franklin, 
Ad;ims,  and  Jay. 

Congress,  in  appointing  our  commissioners, 
had,  with  little  regard  for  the  national  dignity, 
given  them  instructions  which,  if  obeyed,  would 
have  rendered  them  completely  subservient  to 
France;  for  they  were  directed  to  undertake 
nothing  in  the  negotiations  without  the  knowl 
edge  and  concurrence  of  the  French  cabinet, 
and  in  all  decisions  to  be  ultimately  governed 


120  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

by  the  advice  of  that  body.  Morris  fiercely 
resented  such  servile  subservience,  and  in  a 
letter  to  Jay  denounced  Congress  with  well- 
justified  warmth,  writing:  "That  the  proud 
should  prostitute  the  very  little  dignity  this 
poor  country  is  possessed  of  would  be  indeed 
astounding,  if  we  did  not  know  the  near  alliance 
between  pride  and  meanness.  Men  who  have 
too  little  spirit  to  demand  of  their  constituents 
that  they  do  their  duty,  who  have  sufficient 
humility  to  beg  a  paltry  pittance  at  the  hands 
of  any  and  every  sovereign,  —  such  men  will 
always  be  ready  to  pay  the  price  which  vanity 
shall  demand  from  the  vain."  Jay  promptly 
persuaded  his  colleagues  to  unite  with  him  in 
disregarding  the  instructions  of  Congress  on 
this  point ;  had  he  not  done  so,  the  dignity  of 
our  government  would,  as  he  wrote  Morris, 
"  have  been  in  the  dust."  Franklin  was  at  first 
desirous  of  yielding  obedience  to  the  command  ; 
but  Adams  immediately  joined  Jay  in  repudiat 
ing  it. 

We  had  waged  war  against  Britain,  with 
France  and  Spain  as  allies;  but  in  making 
peace  we  had  to  strive  for  our  rights  against 
our  friends  almost  as  much  as  against  our  ene 
mies.  There  was  much  generous  and  disinter 
ested  enthusiasm  for  America  among  French 
men  individually  ;  but  the  French  government, 


FINANCES:   THE  TREATY  OF  PEACE.       121 

with  which  alone  we  were  to  deal  in  making 
peace,  had  acted  throughout  from  purely  selfish 
motives,  and  in  reality  did  not  care  an  atom  for 
American  rights.  We  owed  France  no  more 
gratitude  for  taking  our  part  than  she  owed  us 
for  giving  her  an  opportunity  of  advancing  her 
own  interests,  and  striking  a  severe  blow  at  an 
old-time  enemy  and  rival.  As  for  Spain,  she 
disliked  us  quite  as  much  as  she  did  England. 

The  peace  negotiations  brought  all  this  out 
very  clearly.  The  great  French  minister  Ver- 
gennes,  who  dictated  the  policy  of  his  court  all 
through  the  contest,  cared  nothing  for  the  revo 
lutionary  colonists  themselves  ;  but  he  was  bent 
upon  securing  them  their  independence,  so  as 
to  weaken  England,  and  he  was  also  bent  upon 
keeping  them  from  gaining  too  much  strength, 
so  that  they  might  always  remain  dependent 
allies  of  France.  He  wished  to  establish  the 
"balance  of  power  "  system  in  America.  The 
American  commissioners  he  at  first  despised  for 
their  blunt,  truthful  straightforwardness,  which 
he,  trained  in  the  school  of  deceit,  and  a  thor 
ough  believer  in  every  kind  of  finesse  and 
double-dealing,  mistook  for  boorishness ;  later 
on,  he  learned  to  his  chagrin  that  they  were 
able  as  well  as  honest,  and  that  their  resolu 
tion,  skill,  and  far-sightedness  made  them, 
where  their  own  deepest  interests  were  con- 


122  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

cerned,  over-matches  for  the  subtle  diplomats  of 
Europe. 

America,  then,  was  determined  to  secure  not 
only  independence,  but  also  a  chance  to  grow 
into  a  great  continental  nation ;  she  wished  her 
boundaries  fixed  at  the  great  lakes  and  the 
Mississippi  ;  she  also  asked  for  the  free  naviga 
tion  of  the  latter  to  the  Gulf,  and  for  a  share  in 
the  fisheries.  Spain  did  not  even  wish  that  we 
should  be  made  independent  ;  she  hoped  to  be 
compensated  at  our  expense,  for  her  failure  to 
take  Gibraltar ;  and  she  desired  that  we  should 
be  kept  so  weak  as  to  hinder  us  from  being 
aggressive.  Her  fear  of  us,  by  the  way,  was 
perfectly  justifiable,  for  the  greatest  part  of 
our  present  territory  lies  within  what  were 
nominally  Spanish  limits  a  hundred  years  ago. 
France,  as  the  head  of  a  great  coalition,  wanted 
to  keep  on  good  terms  with  both  her  allies  ;  but, 
as  Gerard,  the  French  minister  at  Washington, 
said :  if  .France  had  to  choose  between  the  two, 
"  the  decision  would  not  be  in  favor  of  the 
United  States."  She  wished  to  secure  for 
America  independence,  but  she  wished  also  to 
keep  the  new  nation  so  weak  that  it  would  "feel 
the  need  of  sureties,  allies,  and  protectors." 
France  desired  to  exclude  our  people  from  the 
fisheries,  to  deprive  us  of  half  our  territories 
by  making  the  Alleghanies  our  western  boun- 


FINANCES:   THE   TREATY   OF  PEACE.       123 

daries,  and  to  secure  to  Spain  the  undisputed 
control  of  the  navigation  of  the  Mississippi.  It 
was  not  to  the  interest  of  France  and  Spain  that 
we  should  be  a  great  and  formidable  people,  and 
very  naturally  they  would  not  help  us  to  be 
come  one.  There  is  no  need  of  blaming  them 
for  their  conduct ;  but  it  would  have  been  rank 
folly  to  have  been  guided  by  their  wishes.  Our 
true  policy  was  admirably  summed  up  by  Jay 
in  his  letters  to  Livingston,  where  he  says  : 
"  Let  us  be  honest  and  grateful  to  France,  but 
let  us  think  for  ourselves.  .  .  .  Since  we  have 
assumed  a  place  in  the  political  firmament,  let 
us  move  like  a  primary  and  not  a  secondary 
planet."  Fortunately,  England's  own  self-in 
terest  made  her  play  into  our  hands ;  as  Fox 
put  it,  it  was  necessary  for  her  to  "  insist  in 
the  strongest  manner  that,  if  America  is  inde 
pendent,  she  must  be  so  of  the  whole  world. 
No  secret,  tacit,  or  ostensible  connection  with 
France.'' 

Our  statesmen  won  ;  we  got  all  we  asked, 
as  much  to  the  astonishment  of  France  as  of 
England  ;  we  proved  even  more  successful  in 
diplomacy  than  in  arms.  As  Fox  had  hoped, 
we  became  independent  not  only  of  England, 
but  of  all  the  world  ;  we  were  not  entangled 
as  a  dependent  subordinate  in  the  policy  of 
France,  nor  did  we  sacrifice  our  western  boun- 


124  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

dary  to  Spain.  It  was  a  great  triumph  ;  greater 
than  any  that  had  been  won  by  our  soldiers. 
Franklin  had  a  comparatively  small  share  in 
gaining  it ;  the  glory  of  carrying  through  suc 
cessfully  the  most  important  treaty  we  ever 
negotiated  belongs  to  Jay  and  Adams,  and  es 
pecially  to  Jay. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  FORMATION   OF    THE    NATIONAL    CONSTI 
TUTION. 

BEFORE  peace  was  established,  Morris  had 
been  appointed  a  commissioner  to  treat  for  the 
exchange  of  prisoners.  Nothing  came  of  his 
efforts,  however,  the  British  and  Americans 
being  utterly  unable  to  come  to  any  agreement. 
Both  sides  had  been  greatly  exasperated,  — 
the  British  by  the  Americans'  breach  of  faith 
about  Burgoyne's  troops,  and  the  Americans 
by  the  inhuman  brutality  with  which  their 
captive  countrymen  had  been  treated.  An 
amusing  feature  of  the  affair  was  a  conversa 
tion  between  Morris  and  the  British  general, 
Dalrymple,  wherein  the  former  assured  the 
latter  rather  patronizingly  that  the  British 
"  still  remained  a  great  people,  a  very  great 
people,"  and  that  "  they  would  undoubtedly 
still  hold  their  rank  in  Europe."  He  would 
have  been  surprised,  had  he  known  not  only 
that  the  stubborn  Island  folk  were  destined 
soon  to  hold  a  higher  rank  in  Europe  than 


126  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

ever  before,  but  that  from  their  loins  other 
nations,  broad  as  continents,  were  to  spring,  so 
that  the  South  Seas  should  become  an  English 
ocean,  and  that  over  a  fourth  of  the  world's 
surface  there  should  be  spoken  the  tongue  of 
Pitt  and  Washington. 

No  sooner  was  peace  declared,  and  the  im 
mediate  and  pressing  danger  removed,  than  the 
confederation  relapsed  into  a  loose  knot  of  com 
munities  as  quarrelsome  as  they  were  contemp 
tible.  The  states-rights  men  for  the  moment 
had  things  all  their  own  way,  and  speedily 
reduced  us  to  the  level  afterwards  reached  by 
the  South-American  republics.  Each  common 
wealth  set  up  for  itself,  and  tried  to  oppress 
its  neighbors  ;  not  one  had  a  creditable  history 
for  the  next  four  years  ;  while  the  career  of 
Rhode  Island  in  particular  can  only  be  properly 
described  as  infamous.  We  refused  to  pay  our 
debts,  we  would  not  even  pay  our  army ;  and 
mob  violence  flourished  rankly.  As  a  natural 
result  the  European  powers  began  to  take  ad 
vantage  of  our  weakness  and  division. 

All  our  great  men  saw  the  absolute  need  of 
establishing  a  National  Union  —  not  a  league 
or  a  confederation  —  if  the  country  was  to  be 
saved.  None  felt  this  more  strongly  than 
Morris  ;  and  no  one  was  more  hopeful  of  the 
final  result.  Jay  had  written  to  him  as  to  the 


FORMATION   OF  THE  CONSTITUTION.       127 

need  of  u  raising  and  maintaining  a  national 
spirit  in  America  ; "  and  he  wrote  in  reply, 
at  different  times  : l  "  Much  of  convulsion  will 
ensue,  yet  it  must  terminate  in  giving  to  gov 
ernment  that  power  without  which  government 
is  but  a  name.  .  .  .  This  country  has  never  yet 
been  known  to  Europe,  and  God  knows  whether 
it  ever  will  be.  To  England  it  is  less  known 
than  to  any  other  part  of  Europe,  because  they 
constantly  view  it  through  a  medium  of  either 
prejudice  or  faction.  True  it  is  that  the  gen 
eral  government  wants  energy,  and  equally 
true  it  is  that  the  want  will  eventually  be  sup 
plied.  A  national  spirit  is  the  natural  result 
of  national  existence  ;  and  although  some  of  the 
present  generation  may  feel  the  result  of  colonial 
oppositions  of  opinion,  that  generation  will  die 
away,  and  give  place  to  a  race  of  Americans. 
On  this  occasion,  as  on  others,  Great  Britain 
is  our  best  friend ;  and,  by  seizing  the  critical 
moment  when  we  were  about  to  divide,  she  has 
shown  us  the  dreadful  consequences  of  division. 
.  .  .  Indeed,  my  friend,  nothing  can  do  us 
so  much  good  as  to  convince  the  Eastern  and 
Southern  States  how  necessary  it  is  to  give 
proper  force  to  the  federal  government,  and 
nothing  will  so  soon  operate  that  conviction  as 
foreign  efforts  to  restrain  the  navigation  of  the 
1  The  italics  are  mine. 


128  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

one  and  the  commerce  of  the  other."  The  last 
sentence  referred  to  the  laws  aimed  at  our 
trade  by  Great  Britain,  and  by  other  powers 
as  well,  — symptoms  of  outside  hostility  which 
made  us  at  once  begin  to  draw  together  again. 
Money  troubles  grew  apace,  and  produced 
the  usual  crop  of  crude  theories  and  of  vicious 
and  dishonest  legislation  in  accordance  there 
with.  Lawless  outbreaks  became  common,  and 
in  Massachusetts  culminated  in  actual  rebellion. 
The  mass  of  the  people  were  rendered  hostile 
to  any  closer  union  by  their  ignorance,  their 
jealousy,  and  the  general  particularistic  bent 
of  their  minds,  —  this  last  being  merely  a  vi 
cious  graft  on,  or  rather  outgrowth  of,  the  love 
of  freedom  inborn  in  the  race.  Their  leaders 
were  enthusiasts  of  pure  purpose  and  unsteady 
mental  vision  ;  they  were  followed  by  the  mass 
of  designing  politicians,  who  feared  that  their 
importance  would  be  lost  if  their  sphere  of  ac 
tion  should  be  enlarged.  Among  these  leaders 
the  three  most  important  were,  in  New  York 
George  Clinton,  and  in  Massachusetts  and  Vir 
ginia  two  much  greater  men  —  Samuel  Adams 
and  Patrick  Henry.  All  three  had  done  excel 
lent  service  at  the  beginning  of  the  revolution 
ary  troubles.  Patrick  Henry  lived  to  redeem 
himself,  almost  in  his  last  hour,  by  the  noble 
stand  he  took  in  aid  of  Washington  against  the 


FORMATION  OF  THE  CONSTITUTION.       129 

democratic  nullification  agitation  of  Jefferson 
and  Madison  ;  but  the  usefulness  of  each  of  the 
other  two  was  limited  to  the  early  portion  of 
his  career. 

Like  every  other  true  patriot  and  statesman, 
Morris  did  all  in  his  power  to  bring  into  one 
combination  the  varied  interests  favorable  to 
the  formation  of  a  government  that  should  be 
strong  and  responsible  as  well  as  free.  The 
public  creditors  and  the  soldiers  of  the  army 
—  whose  favorite  toasts  were  :  "  A  hoop  to  the 
barrel,"  and  "Cement  to  the  Union" — were 
the  two  classes  most  sensible  of  the  advantages 
of  such  a  government;  and  to  each  of  these 
Morris  addressed  himself  when  he  proposed  to 
consolidate  the  public  debt,  both  to  private 
citizens  and  to  the  soldiers,  and  to  make  it  a 
charge  on  the  United  States,  and  not  on  the 
several  separate  states. 

In  consequence  of  the  activity  and  ability 
with  which  he  advocated  a  firmer  Union,  the 
extreme  states-rights  men  were  especially  hos 
tile  to  him  ;  and  certain  of  their  number  as 
sailed  him  with  bitter  malignity,  both  then  and 
afterwards.  One  accusation  was,  that  he  had 
improper  connections  with  the  public  creditors. 
This  was  a  pure  slander,  absolutely  without 
foundation,  and  not  supported  by  even  the  pre 
tence  of  proof.  Another  accusation  was  that 


130  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

he  favored  the  establishment  of  a  monarchy. 
This  was  likewise  entirely  untrue.  Morris  was 
not  a  sentimental  political  theorist ;  he  was  an 
eminently  practical  —  that  is,  useful  —  states 
man,  who  saw  with  unusual  clearness  that  each 
people  must  have  a  government  suited  to  its 
own  individual  character,  and  to  the  stage  of 
political  and  social  development  it  had  reached. 
He  realized  that  a  nation  must  be  governed 
according  to  the  actual  needs  and  capacities 
of  its  citizens,  not  according  to  any  abstract 
theory  or  set  of  ideal  principles.  He  would 
have  dismissed  with  contemptuous  laughter  the 
ideas  of  those  Americans  who  at  the  present 
day  believe  that  Anglo-Saxon  democracy  can 
be  applied  successfully  to  a  h;ilf-savage  negroid 
people  in  Hayti,  or  of  those  Englishmen  who 
consider  seriously  the  proposition  to  renovate 
Turkey  by  giving  her  representative  institu 
tions  and  a  parliamentary  government.  He 
understood  and  stated  that  a  monarchy  "  did 
not  consist  with  the  taste  and  temper  of  the 
people  "  in  America,  and  he  believed  in  estab 
lishing  a  form  of  government  that  did.  Like 
almost  every  other  statesman  of  the  day,  the 
perverse  obstinacy  of  the  extreme  particularist 
section  at  times  made  him  downhearted,  and 
caused  him  almost  to  despair  of  a  good  govern 
ment  being  established  ;  and  like  every  sensible 


FORMATION  OF  THE  CONSTITUTION.       131 

man  he  would  have  preferred  almost  any  strong, 
orderly  government  to  the  futile  anarchy 
towards  which  the  ultra  states-rights  men  or 
separatists  tended.  Had  these  last  ever  finally 
obtained  the  upper  hand,  either  in  revolu 
tionary  or  post-revolutionary  times,  either  in 
1787  or  1861,  the  fact  would  have  shown  con 
clusively  that  Americans  were  unfitted  for  re 
publicanism  and  self-government.  An  orderly 
monarchy  would  certainly  be  preferable  to  a 
republic  of  the  epileptic  Spanish  -  American 
type.  The  extreme  doctrinaires,  who  are  fier 
cest  in  declaiming  in  favor  of  freedom  are  in 
reality  its  worst  foes,  far  more  dangerous  than 
any  absolute  monarchy  ever  can  be.  When 
liberty  becomes  license,  some  form  of  one-man 
power  is  not  far  distant. 

The  one  great  reason  for  our  having  suc 
ceeded  as  no  other  people  ever  has,  is  to  be 
found  in  that  common  sense  which  has  enabled 
us  to  preserve  the  largest  possible  individual 
freedom  on  the  one  hand,  while  showing  an 
equally  remarkable  capacity  for  combination 
on  the  other.  We  have  committed  plenty  of 
faults,  but  we  have  seen  and  remedied  them. 
Our  very  doctrinaires  have  usually  acted  much 
more  practically  than  they  have  talked.  Jeffer 
son,  when  in  power,  adopted  most  of  the  Fed 
eralist  theories,  and  became  markedly  hostile 


132  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

to  the  nullification  movements  at  whose  birth 
he  had  himself  officiated.  We  have  often  blun 
dered  badly  in  the  beginning,  but  we  have  al 
ways  come  out  well  in  the  end.  The  Dutch, 
when  they  warred  for  freedom  from  Spanish 
rule,  showed  as  much  short-sighted  selfishness 
and  bickering  jealousy  as  even  our  own  revo 
lutionary  ancestors,  and  only  a  part  remained 
faithful  to  the  end  :  as  a  result,  but  one  section 
won  independence,  while  the  Netherlands  were 
divided,  and  never  grasped  the  power  that 
should  have  been  theirs.  As  for  the  Spanish- 
Americans,  they  split  up  hopelessly  almost  be 
fore  they  were  free,  and,  though  they  bettered 
their  condition  a  little,  yet  lost  nine  tenths  of 
what  they  had  gained.  Scotland  and  Ireland, 
when  independent,  wTere  nests  of  savages.  All 
the  follies  our  forefathers  committed  can  be 
paralleled  elsewhere,  but  their  successes  are 
unique. 

So  it  was  in  the  few  years  immediately  suc 
ceeding  the  peace  by  which  we  won  our  inde 
pendence.  The  mass  of  the  people  wished  for 
no  closer  union  than  was  to  be  found  in  a  lax 
confederation  ;  but  they  had  the  good  sense  to 
learn  the  lesson  taught  by  the  weakness  and 
lawlessness  they  saw  around  them ;  they  re 
luctantly  made  up  their  minds  to  the  need  of  a 
stronger  government,  and  when  they  had  once 


FORMATION  OF  THE  CONSTITUTION.      133 

come  to  their  decision,  neither  demagogue  nor 
doctrinaire  could  swerve  them  from  it. 

The  national  convention  to  form  a  Consti 
tution  met  in  May,  1787  ;  and  rarely  in  the 
world's  history  has  there  been  a  deliberative 
body  which  contained  so  many  remarkable  men, 
or  produced  results  so  lasting  and  far-reaching. 
The  Congress  whose  members  signed  the  Dec 
laration  of  Independence  had  but  cleared  the 
ground  on  which  the  framers  of  the  Constitu 
tion  were  to  build.  Among  the  delegates  in 
attendance,  easily  first  stood  Washington  and 
Franklin, —  two  of  that  great  American  trio  in 
which  Lincoln  is  the  third.  Next  came  Hamil 
ton  from  New  York,  having  as  colleagues  a 
couple  of  mere  obstructionists  sent  by  the  Clin- 
tonians  to  handicap  him.  From  Pennsylvania 
came  Robert  Morris  and  Gouverneur  Morris ; 
from  Virginia,  Madison ;  from  South  Carolina, 
Rutledge  and  the  Pinckneys  ;  and  so  on  through 
the  other  states.  Some  of  the  most  noted 
statesmen  were  absent,  however.  Adams  and 
Jefferson  were  abroad.  Jay  was  acting  as  Sec 
retary  for  Foreign  Affairs ;  in  which  capacity, 
by  the  way,  he  had  shown  most  unlooked-for 
weakness  in  yielding  to  Spanish  demands  about 
the  Mississippi. 

Two  years  after  taking  part  in  the  proceed 
ings  of  the  American  Constitutional  Convention, 


134  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

Morris  witnessed  the  opening  of  the  States 
General  of  France.  He  thoroughly  appreciated 
the  absolute  and  curious  contrast  offered  by 
these  two  bodies,  each  so  big  with  fate  for  all 
mankind.  The  men  who  predominated  in  and 
shaped  the  actions  of  the  first  belonged  to  a 
type  not  uncommonly  brought  forth  by  a  peo 
ple  already  accustomed  to  freedom  at  a  crisis  in 
the  struggle  to  preserve  or  extend  its  liberties. 
During  the  past  few  centuries  this  type  had  ap 
peared  many  times  among  the  liberty  loving 
nations  who  dwelt  on  the  shores  of  the  Baltic 
and  the  North  Sea  ;  and  our  forefathers  repre 
sented  it  in  its  highest  and  most  perfect  shapes. 
It  is  a  type  only  to  be  found  among  men  al 
ready  trained  to  govern  themselves  as  well  as 
others.  The  American  statesmen  were  the 
kinsfolk  and  fellows  of  Hampden  and  Pym,  of 
William  the  Silent  and  John  of  Barneveldt. 
Save  love  of  freedom,  they  had  little  in  common 
with  the  closet  philosophers,  the  enthusiastic 
visionaries,  and  the  selfish  demagogues  who  in 
France  helped  pull  up  the  flood-gates  of  an  all- 
swallowing  torrent.  They  were  great  men  ;  but 
it  was  less  the  greatness  of  mere  genius  than 
that  springing  from  the  union  of  strong,  virile 
qualities  with  steadfast  devotion  to  a  high  ideal. 
In  certain  respects  they  were  ahead  of  all  their 
European  compeers;  yet  they  preserved  virtues 


FORMATION  OF  THE  CONSTITUTION.       135 

forgotten  or  sneered  at  by  the  contemporaneous 
generation  of  trans  -  Atlantic  leaders.  They 
wrought  for  the  future  as  surely  as  did  the 
French  Jacobins ;  but  their  spirit  was  the  spirit 
of  the  Long  Parliament.  They  were  resolute  to 
free  themselves  from  the  tyranny  of  man  ;  but 
they  had  not  unlearned  the  reverence  felt  by 
their  fathers  for  their  fathers'  God.  They  were 
sincerely  religious.  The  advanced  friends  of  free 
dom  abroad  scoffed  at  religion,  and  would  have 
laughed  outright  at  a  proposition  to  gain  help 
for  their  cause  by  prayer ;  but  to  the  founders 
of  our  Constitution,  when  matters  were  at  a 
deadlock,  and  the  outcome  looked  almost  hope 
less,  it  seemed  a  most  fit  and  proper  thing  that 
one  of  the  chief  of  their  number  should  propose 
to  invoke  to  aid  them  a  wisdom  greater  than 
the  wisdom  of  human  beings.  Even  those 
among  their  descendants  who  no  longer  share 
their  trusting  faith  may  yet  well  do  regretful 
homage  to  a  religious  spirit  so  deep-rooted  and 
so  strongly  tending  to  bring  out  a  pure  and 
high  morality.  The  statesmen  who  met  in 
1787  were  earnestly  patriotic.  They  unselfishly 
desired  the  welfare  of  their  countrymen.  They 
were  cool,  resolute  men,  of  strong  convictions, 
with  clear  insight  into  the  future.  They  were 
thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  needs  of  the 
community  for  which  they  were  to  act.  Above 


136  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

all  they  possessed  that  inestimable  quality,  so 
characteristic  of  their  race,  hard-headed  com 
mon  sense.  Their  theory  of  government  was 
a  very  high  one ;  but  they  understood  perfectly 
that  it  had  to  be  accommodated  to  the  short 
comings  of,  the  average  citizen.  Small  indeed 
was  their  resemblance  to  the  fiery  orators  and 
brilliant  pamphleteers  of  the  States  General. 
They  were  emphatically  good  men  ;  they  were 
no  less  emphatically  practical  men.  They 
would  have  scorned  Mirabeau  as  a  scoundrel  ; 
they  would  have  despised  Sieves  as  a  vain  and 
impractical  theorist. 

The  deliberations  of  the  convention  in  their 
result  illustrated  in  a  striking  manner  the  truth 
of  the  American  principle,  that  —  for  delibera 
tive,  not  executive,  purposes  —  the  wisdom  of 
many  men  is  worth  more  than  the  wisdom  of 
any  one  man.  The  Constitution  that  the  mem 
bers  assembled  in  convention  finally  produced 
was  not  only  the  best  possible  one  for  America 
at  that  time,  but  it  was  also,  in  spite  of  its 
short-comings,  and  taking  into  account  its  fit 
ness  for  our  own  people  and  conditions,  as  well 
as  its  accordance  with  the  principles  of  abstract 
right,  probably  the  best  that  any  nation  has  ever 
had,  while  it  was  beyond  question  a  very  much 
better  one  than  any  single  member  could  have 
prepared.  The  particularist  statesmen  would 


FORMATION  OF  THE  CONSTITUTION.       137 

have  practically  denied  us  any  real  union  or 
efficient  executive  power ;  while  there  was  hardly 
a  Federalist  member  who  would  not,  in  his 
anxiety  to  avoid  the  evils  from  which  we  were 
suffering,  have  given  us  a  government  so  cen 
tralized  and  aristocratic  that  it  would  have 
been  utterly  unsuited  to  a  proud,  liberty-loving, 
and  essentially  democratic  race,  and  would  have 
infallibly  provoked  a  tremendous  reactionary 
revolt. 

It  is  impossible  to  read  through  the  debates 
of  the  convention  without  being  struck  by  the 
innumerable  shortcomings  of  each  individual 
plan  proposed  by  the  several  members,  as  di 
vulged  in  their  speeches,  when  compared  with 
the  plan  finally  adopted.  Had  the  result  been 
in  accordance  with  the  views  of  the  strong-gov 
ernment  men  like  Hamilton  on  the  one  hand,  or 
of  the  weak-government  men  like  Franklin  on 
the  other,  it  would  have  been  equally  disastrous 
for  the  country.  The  men  who  afterwards 
naturally  became  the  chiefs  of  the  Federalist 
party,  and  who  included  in  their  number  the 
bulk  of  the  great  revolutionary  leaders,  were 
the  ones  to  whom  we  mainly  owe  our  present 
form  of  government;  certainly  we  owe  them 
more,  both  on  this  and  on  other  points,  than 
we  do  their  rivals,  the  after -time  Democrats. 
Yet  there  were  some  articles  of  faith  in  the 


138  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

creed  of  the  hitter  so  essential  to  our  national 
wellbeing,  and  yet  so  counter  to  the  prejudices 
of  the  Federalists,  that  it  was  inevitable  they 
should  triumph  in  the  end.  Jefferson  led  the 
Democrats  to  victory  only  when  he  had  learned 
to  acquiesce  thoroughly  in  some  of  the  funda 
mental  principles  of  Federalism,  and  the  govern 
ment  of  himself  and  his  successors  was  good 
chiefly  in  so  far  as  it  followed  out  the  theories 
of  the  Hamiltonians ;  while  Hamilton  and  the 
Federalists  fell  from  power  because  they  could 
not  learn  the  one  great  truth  taught  by  Jeffer 
son,  —  that  in  America  a  statesman  should 
trust  the  people,  and  should  endeavor  to  se 
cure  to  each  man  all  possible  individual  liberty, 
confident  that  he  will  use  it  aright.  The  old- 
school  Jeffersonian  theorists  believed  in  "  a 
strong  people  and  a  weak  government."  Lin 
coln  was  the  first  who  showed  how  a  strong 
people  might  have  a  strong  government  and 
yet  remain  the  freest  on  the  earth.  He  seized 
—  half  unwittingly  —  all  that  was  best  and 
wisest  in  the  traditions  of  Federalism  ;  he  was 
the  true  successor  of  the  Federalist  leaders ;  but 
he  grafted  on  their  system  a  profound  belief 
that  the  great  heart  of  the  nation  beat  for 
truth,  honor,  and  liberty. 

This  fact,  that  in  1787  all  the  thinkers  of 
the  day  drew  out  plans  that  in   some   respects 


FORMATION  OF  THE  CONSTITUTION.      139 

went  very  wide  of  the  mark,  must  be  kept  in 
mind,  or  else  we  shall  judge  each  particular 
thinker  with  undue  harshness  when  we  examine 
his  utterances  without  comparing  them  with 
those  of  his  fellows.  But  one  partial  exception 
can  be  made.  In  the  Constitutional  Conven 
tion  Madison,  a  moderate  Federalist,  was  the 
man  who,  of  all  who  were  there,  saw  things 
most  clearly  as  they  were,  and  whose  theories 
most  closely  corresponded  with  the  principles 
finally  adopted ;  and  although  even  he  was  at 
first  dissatisfied  with  the  result,  and  both  by 
word  and  by  action  interpreted  the  Constitu 
tion  in  widely  different  ways  at  different  times, 
still  this  was  Madison's  time  of  glory :  he  was 
one  of  the  statesmen  who  do  extremely  useful 
work,  but  only  at  some  single  given  crisis. 
While  the  Constitution  was  being  formed  and 
adopted,  he  stood  in  the  very  front ;  but  in  his 
later  career  he  sunk  his  own  individuality,  and 
became  a  mere  pale  shadow  of  Jefferson. 

Morris  played  a  very  prominent  part  in  the 
convention.  He  was  a  ready  speaker,  and 
among  all  the  able  men  present  there  was 
probably  no  such  really  brilliant  thinker.  In 
the  debates  he  spoke  more  often  than  any  one 
else,  although  Madison  was  not  far  behind  him  ; 
and  his  speeches  betrayed,  but  with  marked 
and  exaggerated  emphasis,  both  the  virtues  and 


140  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

the  shortcomings  of  the  Federalist  school  of 
thought.  They  show  us,  too,  why  he  never 
rose  to  the  first  rank  of  statesmen.  His  keen, 
masterful  mind,  his  far-sightedness,  and  the  force 
and  subtlety  of  his  reasoning  were  all  marred 
by  his  incurable  cynicism  and  deep-rooted  dis 
trust  of  mankind.  He  throughout  appears  as 
advocatus  diaboli;  he  puts  the  lowest  interpre 
tation  upon  every  act,  and  frankly  avows  his 
disbelief  in  all  generous  and  unselfish  motives. 
His  continual  allusions  to  the  overpowering 
influence  of  the  baser  passions,  and  to  their 
mastery  of  the  human  race  at  all  times,  drew 
from  Madison,  although  the  two  men  generally 
acted  together,  a  protest  against  his  "  forever 
inculcating  the  utter  political  depravity  of  men, 
and  the  necessity  for  opposing  one  vice  and 
interest  as  the  only  possible  check  to  another 
vice  and  interest." 

Morris  championed  a  strong  national  govern 
ment,  wherein  he  was  right ;  but  he  also  cham 
pioned  a  system  of  class  representation,  leaning 
towards  aristocracy,  wherein  he  was  wrong. 
Not  Hamilton  himself  was  a  firmer  believer  in 
the  national  idea.  His  one  great  object  was  to 
secure  a  powerful  and  lasting  Union,  instead  of 
a  loose  federal  league.  It  must  be  remembered 
that  in  the  convention  the  term  "  federal  "  was- 
used  in  exactly  the  opposite  sense  to  the  one  in 


FORMATION  OF  THE  CONSTITUTION.       141 

which  it  was  taken  afterwards ;  that  is,  it  was 
used  as  the  antithesis  of  "  national,"  not  as  its 
synonym.  The  states-rights  men  used  it  to 
express  a  system  of  government  such  as  that  of 
the  old  federation  of  the  thirteen  colonies  ;  while 
their  opponents  called  themselves  Nationalists, 
and  only  took  the  title  of  Federalists  after  the 
Constitution  had  been  formed,  and  then  simply 
because  the  name  was  popular  with  the  masses. 
They  thus  appropriated  their  adversaries'  party 
name,  bestowing  it  on  the  organization  most 
hostile  to  tlieir  adversaries'  party  theories.  Sim 
ilarly,  the  term  "•  Republican  Party,"  which 
was  originally  in  our  history  merely  another 
name  for  the  Democracy,  has  in  the  end  been 
adopted  by  the  chief  opponents  of  the  latter. 

The  difficulties  for  the  convention  to  surmount 
seemed  insuperable  ;  on  almost  every  question 
that  came  up,  there  were  clashing  interests. 
Strong  government  and  weak  government,  pure 
democracy  or  a  modified  aristocracy,  small  states 
and  large  states,  North  and  South,  slavery  and 
freedom,  agricultural  sections  as  against  com 
mercial  sections,  —  on  each  of  twenty  points  the 
delegates  split  into  hostile  camps,  that  could  only 
be  reconciled  by  concessions  from  both  sides. 
The  Constitution  was  not  one  compromise;  it 
was  a  bundle  of  compromises,  all  needful. 

Morris,  like  every  other  member  of  the  con- 


142  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

vention,  sometimes  took  the  right  and  some 
times  the  wrong  side  on  the  successive  issues 
that  arose.  But  on  the  most  important  one  of 
all  he  made  no  error  ;  and  he  commands  our 
entire  sympathy  for  his  thorough-going  nation 
alism.  As  was  to  be  expected,  he  had  no  re 
gard  whatever  for  states  rights.  He  wished  to 
deny  to  the  small  states  the  equal  representa 
tion  in  the  Senate  finally  allowed  them ;  and  he 
was  undoubtedly  right  theoretically.  No  good 
argument  can  be  adduced  in  support  of  the  pres 
ent  system  on  that  point.  Still,  it  has  thus  far 
worked  no  harm  ;  the  reason  being  that  our  states 
have  merely  artificial  boundaries,  while  those  of 
small  population  have  hitherto  been  distributed 
pretty  evenly  among  the  different  sections,  so 
that  they  have  been  split  up  like  the  others  on 
every  important  issue,  and  thus  have  never 
been  arrayed  against  the  rest  of  the  country. 

Though  Morris  and  his  side  were  defeated  in  ; 
their  efforts  to  have  the  states  represented  pro 
portionally  in  the  Senate,  yet  they  carried  their 
point  as  to  representation  in  the  House.  Also 
on  the  general  question  of  making  a  national 
government,  as  distinguished  from  a  league  or 
federation,  the  really  vital  point,  their  triumph 
was  complete.  The  Constitution  they  drew  up 
and  had  adopted  no  more  admitted  of  legal  or 
peaceable  rebellion  —  whether  called  secession 


FORMATION  OF  THE  CONSTITUTION.    143 

or  nullification  —  on  the  part  of  the  state  than 
on  the  part  of  a  county  or  an  individual. 

Morris  expressed  his  own  views  with  his 
usual  clear-cut,  terse  vigor  when  he  asserted 
that  "  state  attachments  and  state  importance 
had  been  the  bane  of  the  country,"  and  that  he 
came,  not  as  a  mere  delegate  from  one  section, 
but  "as  a  representative  of  America, — a  repre 
sentative  in  some  degree  of  the  whole  human 
race,  for  the  whole  human  race  would  be  af 
fected  by  the  outcome  of  the  convention."  And 
he  poured  out  the  flood  of  his  biting  scorn  on 
those  gentlemen  who  came  there  u  to  truck  and 
bargain  for  their  respective  states,"  asking  what 
man  there  was  who  could  tell  with  certainty 
the  state  wherein  he  —  and  even  more  where 
in  his  children  —  would  live  in  the  future  ;  and 
reminding  the  small  states,  with  cavalier  indif 
ference,  that,  "  if  they  did  not  like  the  Union, 
no  matter,  —  they  would  have  to  come  in, 
and  that  was  all  there  was  about  it  ;  for  if  per 
suasion  did  not  unite  the  country,  then  the  " 
sword  would."  His  correct  language  and  dis-  ^ 
tinct  enunciation  —  to  which  Madison  has  borne 
witness  —  allowed  his  grim  truths  to  carry  their 
full  weight ;  and  he  brought  them  home  to  his 
hearers  with  a  rough,  almost  startling  earnest 
ness  and  directness.  Many  of  those  present 
must  have  winced  when  he  told  them  that  it 


144  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

would  matter  nothing  to  America  "  if  all  the 
charters  and  constitutions  of  the  states  were 
thrown  into  the  fire,  and  all  the  demagogues 
into  the  ocean,"  and  asserted  that  "  any  par 
ticular  state  ought  to  be  injured,  for  the  sake 
of  a  majority  of  the  people,  in  case  its  conduct 
showed  that  it  deserved  it."  He  held  that  we 
should  create  a  national  government,  to  be  the 
one  and  only  supreme  power  in  the  land,  —  one 
which,  unlike  a  mere  federal  league,  such  as  we 
then  lived  under,  should  have  complete  and 
compulsive  operation  ;  and  he  instanced  the  ex 
amples  as  well  of  Greece  as  of  Germany  and  the 
United  Netherlands,  to  prove  that  local  juris 
diction  destroyed  every  tie  of  nationality. 

It  shows  the  boldness  of  the  experiment  in 
which  we  were  engaged,  that  we  were  forced  to 
take  all  other  nations,  whether  dead  or  living, 
as  warnings,  not  examples  ;  whereas,  since  we 
succeeded,  we  have  served  as  a  pattern  to  be 
copied,  either  wholly  or  in  part,  by  every  other 
people  that  has  followed  in  our  steps.  Before 
our  own  experience,  each  similar  attempt,  save 
perhaps  on  the  smallest  scale,  had  been  a  failure. 
Where  so  many  other  nations  teach  by  their 
mistakes,  we  are  among  the  few  who  teach  by 
their  successes. 

Be  it  noted  also  that,  the  doctrinaires  to  the 
contrary  notwithstanding,  we  proved  that  a 


FORMATION  OF  THE   CONSTITUTION.       145 

strong  central  government  was  perfectly  com 
patible  with  absolute  democracy.  Indeed,  the 
separatist  spirit  does  not  lead  to  true  demo 
cratic  freedom.  Anarchy  is  the  handmaiden  of 
tyranny.  Of  all  the  states,  South  Carolina  has 
shown  herself  (at  least  throughout  the  greater 
part  of  the  present  century)  to  be  the  most 
aristocratic,  and  the  most  wedded  to  the  sepa 
ratist  spirit.  The  German  masses  were  never 
so  ground  down  by  oppression  as  when  the  lit 
tle  German  principalities  were  most  indepen 
dent  of  each  other  and  of  any  central  authority.  > 

Morris  believed  in  letting  the  United  States 
interfere  to  put  down  a  rebellion  in  a  state, 
even  though  the  executive  of  the  state  himself 
should  be  at  the  head  of  it ;  and  he  was  sup 
ported  in  his  views  by  Pinckney,  the  ablest 
member  of  the  brilliant  and  useful  but  un 
fortunately  short-lived  school  of  South  Carolina 
Federalists.  Pinckney  was  a  thorough-going 
Nationalist ;  he  wished  to  go  a  good  deal  further 
than  the  convention  actually  went  in  giving 
the  central  government  complete  control.  Thus 
he  proposed  that  Congress  should  have  power 
to  negative  by  a  two-thirds  vote  all  state  laws 
inconsistent  with  the  harmony  of  the  Union. 
Madison  also  wished  to  give  Congress  a  veto 
over  state  legislation.  Morris  believed  that  a 
national  law  should  be  allowed  to  repeal  any 


146  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

state  law,  and  that  Congress  should  legislate  in 
all  cases  where  the  laws  of  the  states  conflicted 
among  themselves. 

Yet  Morris,  on  the  very  question  of  nation 
alism,  himself  showed  the  narrowest,  blindest, 
and  least  excusable  sectional  jealousy  on  one 
point.  He  felt  as  an  American  for  all  the 
Union,  as  it  then  existed  ;  but  he  feared  and 
dreaded  the  growth  of  the  Union  in  the  West, 
the  very  place  where  it  was  inevitable,  as  well 
as  in  the  highest  degree  desirable,  that  the 
greatest  growth  should  take  place.  He  actually 
desired  the  convention  to  commit  the  criminal 
folly  of  attempting  to  provide  that  the  West 
should  always  be  kept  subordinate  to  the  East. 
Fortunately  he  failed  ;  but  the  mere  attempt 
casts  the  gravest  discredit  alike  on  his  far-sight 
edness  and  on  his  reputation  as  a  statesman.  It 
is  impossible  to  understand  how  one  who  was 
usually  so  cool  and  clear-headed  an  observer 
could  have  blundered  so  flagrantly  on  a  point 
hardly  less  vital  than  the  establishment  of  the 
Union  itself.  Indeed,  had  his  views  been  carried 
through,  they  would  in  the  end  have  nullified 
all  the  good  bestowed  by  the  Union.  In  speak 
ing  against  state  jealousy,  he  had  shown  its 
foolishness  by  observing  that  no  man  could  tell 
in  what  state  his  children  would  dwell ;  and 
the  folly  of  the  speaker  himself  was  made  quite 


FORMATION  OF  THE  CONSTITUTION.      147 

as  clear  by  his  not  perceiving  that  their  most 
likely  dwelling-place  was  in  the  West.  This 
jealousy  of  the  West  was  even  more  discreditable 
to  the  Northeast  than  the  jealousy  of  America 
had  been  to  England;  and  it  continued  strong, 
especially  in  New  England,  for  very  many 
years.  It  was  a  mean  and  unworthy  feeling; 
and  it  was  greatly  to  the  credit  of  the  Southern 
ers  that  they  shared  it  only  to  a  very  small 
extent.  The  South  in  fact  originally  was  in 
heartiest  sympathy  with  the  West ;  it  was  not 
until  the  middle  of  the  present  century  that  the 
country  beyond  the  Alleghanies  became  prepon- 
deratingly  Northern  in  sentiment.  In  the  Con 
stitutional  Convention  itself,  Butler,  of  South 
Carolina,  pointed  out  "  that  the  people  and 
strength  of  America  were  evidently  tending 
westwardly  and  south  west  wardly." 

Morris  wished  to  discriminate  against  the 
West  by  securing  to  the  Atlantic  States  the  per 
petual  control  of  the  Union.  He  brought  this 
idea  up  pgain  and  again,  insisting  that  we  should 
reserve  to  ourselves  the  right  to  put  conditions 
on  the  Western  States  when  we  should  admit 
them.  He  dwelt  at  length  on  the  danger  of 
throwing  the  preponderance  of  influence  into  the 
Western  scale;  stating  his  dread  of  the  "back 
members,"  who  were  always  the  most  ignorant, 
and  the  opponents  of  all  good  measures.  He 


148  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

foretold  with  fear  that  some  day  the  people  of 
the  West  would  outnumber  the  people  of  the 
East,  and  he  wished  to  put  it  in  the  power  of 
the  latter  to  keep  a  majority  of  the  votes  in 
their  own  hands.  Apparently  he  did  not  see 
that,  if  the  West  once  became  as  populous  as 
he  predicted,  its  legislators  would  forthwith 
cease  to  be  "  back  members."  The  futility  of 
his  fears,  and  still  more  of  his  remedies,  was  so 
evident  that  the  convention  paid  very  little  heed 
to  either. 

On  one  point,  however,  his  anticipations  of 
harm  were  reasonable,  and  indeed  afterwards 
came  true  in  part.  He  insisted  that  the  West, 
or  interior,  would  join  the  South  and  force  us 
into  a  war  with  some  European  power,  wherein 
the  benefits  would  accrue  to  them  and  the  harm 
to  the  Northeast.  The  attitude  of  the  South 
and  West  already  clearly  foreshadowed  a  strug 
gle  with  Spain  for  the  Mississippi  Valley ;  and 
such  a  struggle  would  surely  have  come,  either 
with  the  French  or  Spaniards,  had  we  failed  to 
secure  the  territory  in  question  by  peaceful 
purchase.  As  it  was,  the  realization  of  Morris's 
prophecy  was  only  put  off  for  a  few  years ;  the 
South  and  West  brought  on  the  War  of  1812, 
wherein  the  East  was  the  chief  sufferer. 

On  the  question  as  to  whether  the  Constitu 
tion  should  be  made  absolutely  democratic  or  i 


FORMATION  OF  THE  CONSTITUTION.        149 

not,  Morris  took  the  conservative  side.  On  the 
suffrage  his  views  are  perfectly  defensible :  he 
believed  that  it  should  be  limited  to  freeholders. 
He  rightly  considered  the  question  as  to  how 
widely  it  should  be  extended  to  be  one  of  expe 
diency  merely.  It  is  simply  idle  folly  to  talk 
of  suffrage  as  being  an  "  inborn  "  or  "natural" 
right.  There  are  enormous  communities  totally 
unfit  for  its  exercise  ;  while  true  universal 
suffrage  never  has  been,  and  never  will  be, 
seriously  advocated  by  any  one.  There  must 
always  be  an  age  limit,  and  such  a  limit  must 
necessarily  be  purely  arbitrary.  The  wildest 
democrat  of  revolutionary  times  did  not  dream 
of  doing  away  with  the  restrictions  of  race  and 
sex  which  kept  most  American  citizens  from 
the  ballot-box  ;  and  there  is  certainly  much  less 
abstract  right  in  a  system  which  limits  the 
suffrage  to  people  of  a  certain  color  than  there 
is  in  one  which  limits  it  to  people  who  come  up 
to  a  given  standard  of  thrift  and  intelligence. 
On  the  other  hand,  our  experience  has  not 
proved  that  men  of  wealth  make  any  better  use 
of  their  ballots  than  do,  for  instance,  mechanics 
and  other  handicraftsmen.  No  plan  could  be 
adopted  so  perfect  as  to  be  free  from  all  draw 
backs.  On  the  whole,  however,  and  taking  our 
country  in  its  length  and  breadth,  manhood 
suffrage  has  worked  well,  better  than  would 


150  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

have  been  the  case  with  any  other  system ;  but 
even  here  there  are  certain  localities  where  its 
results  have  been  evil,  and  must  simply  be  ac 
cepted  as  the  blemishes  inevitably  attendant 
upon,  and  marring,  any  effort  to  carry  out  a 
scheme  that  will  be  widely  applicable. 

Morris  contended  that  his  plan  would  work 
no  novel  or  great  hardship,  as  the  people  in 
several  states  were  already  accustomed  to  free 
hold  suffrage.  He  considered  the  freeholders  [ 
to  be  the  best  guardians  of  liberty,  and  main-  j 
tained  that  the  restriction  of  the  right  to 
them  was  only  creating  a  necessary  safeguard 
"  against  the  dangerous  influence  of  those 
people  without  property  or  principle,  with 
whom,  in  the  end,  our  country,  like  all  other 
countries,  was  sure  to  abound."  He  did  not? 
believe  that  the  ignorant  and  dependent  could/ 
be  trusted  to  vote.  Madison  supported  hi  ml 
heartily,  likewise  thinking  the  freeholders  the 
safest  guardians  of  our  rights ;  he  indulged 
in  some  gloomy  (and  fortunately  hitherto  un 
verified)  forebodings  as  to  our  future,  which 
sound  strangely  coming  from  one  who  was 
afterwards  an  especial  pet  of  the  Jeffersonian 
democracy.  He  said :  "  In  future  times  a 
great  majority  of  the  people  will  be  without 
landed  or  any  other  property.  They  will  then 
either  combine  under  the  influence  of  their 


FORMATION  OF  THE  CONSTITUTION.         151 

common  situation,  —  in  which  case  the  rights 
of  property  and  the  public  liberty  will  not  be 
safe  in  their  hands,  —  or,  as  is  more  probable, 
they  will  become  the  tools  of  opulence  and  am 
bition." 

Morris  also  enlarged  on  this  last  idea.  "  Give 
the  votes  to  people  who  have  no  property, 
and  they  will  sell  them  to  the  rich,"  said  he. 
"When  taunted  with  his  aristocratic  tendencies, 
he  answered  that  he  had  long  ceased  to  be  the 
dupe  of  words,  that  the  mere  sound  of  the  name 
"aristocracy"  had  no  terrors  for  him,  but  that 
he  did  fear  lest  harm  should  result  to  the  people 
from  the  unacknowledged  existence  of  the  very 
thing  they  feared  to  mention.  As  he  put  it, 
there  never  was  or  would  be  a  civilized  society 
without  an  aristocracy,  and  his  endeavor  was 
to  keep  it  as  much  as  possible  from  doing  mis 
chief.  He  thus  professed  to  be  opposed  to  the 
existence  of  an  aristocracy,  but  convinced  that 
it  would  exist  anyhow,  and  that  therefore  the 
best  thing  to  be  done  was  to  give  it  a  recog 
nized  place,  while  clipping  its  wings  so  as  to 
prevent  its  working  harm.  In  pursuance  of 
this  theory,  he  elaborated  a  wild  plan,  the  ch'ef 
feature  of  which  was  the  provision  for  an  aris 
tocratic  senate,  and  a  popular  or  democratic, 
house,  which  were  to  hold  each  other  in  check, 
and  thereby  prevent  either  party  from  doing 


152  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

damage.  He  believed  that  the  senators  should 
be  appointed  by  the  national  executive,  who 
should  fill  up  the  vacancies  that  occurred.  To 
make  the  upper  house  effective  as  a  checking 
branch,  it  should  be  so  constituted  to  as  have  a 
personal  interest  in  checking  the  other  branch  ; 
it  should  be  a  senate  for  life,  it  should  be  rich, 
it  should  be  aristocratic.  He  continued  :  —  It 
would  then  do  wrong  ?  He  believed  so ;  he 
hoped  so.  The  rich  would  strive  to  enslave  the 
rest;  they- always  did.  The  proper  security 
against  them  was  to  form  them  into  a  separate 
interest.  The  two  forces  would  then  control 
each  other.  By  thus  combining  and  setting 
apart  the  aristocratic  interest,  the  popular  in 
terest  would  also  be  combined  against  it. 
There  would  be  mutual  check  and  mutual 
security.  If,  on  the  contrary,  the  rich  and 
poor  were  allowed  to  mingle,  then,  if  the  coun 
try  were  commercial,  an  oligarchy  would  be 
established  ;  and  if  it  were  not,  an  unlimited 
democracy  would  ensue.  It  was  best  to  look 
truth  in  the  face.  The  loaves  and  fishes  would 
be  needed  to  bribe  demagogues  ;  while  as  for 
the  people,  if  left  to  themselves,  they  would 
never  act  from  reason  alone.  The  rich  would 
take  advantage  of  their  passions,  and  the  result 
would  be  either  a  violent  aristocracy,  or  a  more 
violent  despotism. — The  speech  containing 


FORMATION  OF  THE  CONSTITUTION.       153 

these  extraordinary  sentiments,  which  do  no 
particular  credit  to  either  Morris's  head  or 
heart,  is  given  in  substance  by  Madison  in  the 
"  Debates."  Madison's  report  is  undoubtedly 
correct,  for,  after  writing  it,  he  showed  it  to  the 
speaker  himself,  who  made  but  one  or  two  ver 
bal  alterations. 

Morris  applied  an  old  theory  in  a  new  way 
when  he  proposed  to  make  "  taxation  propor 
tional  to  representation  "  throughout  the  Union. 
He  considered  the  preservation  of  property  as 
being  the  distinguishing  object  of  civilization, 
as  liberty  was  sufficiently  guaranteed  even  by 
savagery  ;  and  therefore  he  held  that  the  repre 
sentation  in  the  senate  should  be  according  to 
property  as  well  as  numbers.  But  when  this 
proposition  was  defeated,  he  declined  to  sup 
port  one  making  property  qualifications  for 
congressmen,  remarking  that  such  were  proper 
for  the  electors  rather  than  the  elected. 

His  views  as  to  the  power  and  functions  of 
the  national  executive  were  in  the  main  sound, 
and  he  succeeded  in  having  most  of  them  em 
bodied  in  the  Constitution.  He  wished  to 
have  the  President  hold  office  during  good  be 
havior  ;  and,  though  this  was  negatived,  he 
succeeded  in  having  him  made  reeligible  to 
the  position.  He  was  instrumental  in  giving 
him  a  qualified  veto  over  legislation,  and  in 


GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

providing  for  his  impeachment  for  misconduct ; 
and  also  in  having  him  made  Commander-in- 
chief  of  the  forces  of  the  republic,  and  in 
allowing  him  the  appointment  of  governmental 
officers.  The  especial  service  he  rendered, 
however,  was  his  successful  opposition  to  tlie 
plan  whereby  the  President  was  to  be  elected 
by  the  legislature.  This  proposition  he  com 
bated  with  all  bis  strength,  showing  that  it 
would  take  away  greatly  from  the  dignity  of 
the  executive,  and  would  render  his  election  a 
matter  of  cabal  and  faction,  "  like  the  election 
of  the  pope  by  a  conclave  of  cardinals/'  He 
contended  that  the  President  should  be  chosen 
by  the  people  at  large,  by  the  citizens  of  the 
United  States,  acting  through  electors  whom 
they  had  picked  out.  He  showed  the  probabil 
ity  that  in  such  a  cnse  the  people  would  unite 
upon  a  man  of  continental  reputation,  as  the 
influence  of  designing  demagogues  and  tricksters 
is  generally  powerful  in  proportion  as  the  limits 
within  which  they  work  are  narrow  ;  and  the 
importance  of  the  stake  would  make  all  men 
inform  themselves  thoroughly  as  to  the  char 
acters  and  capacities  of  those  who  were  con 
tending  for  it ;  and  he  flatly  denied  the  state 
ments,  that  were  made  in  evident  good  faith,  to 
the  effect  that  in  a  general  election  each  State 
would  cast  its  vote  for  its  own  favorite  citizen, 


FORMATION  OF  THE  CONSTITUTION.      155 

He  inclined  to  regard  the  President  in  the  light 
of  a  tribune  chosen  by  the  people  to  watch 
over  the  legislature ;  and  giving  him  the  ap 
pointing  power,  he  believed,  would  force  him 
to  make  good  use  of  it,  owing  to  his  sense  of 
responsibility  to  the  people  at  large,  who  would 
be  directly  affected  by  its  exercise,  and  who 
could  and  would  hold  him  accountable  for  its 
abuse. 

On  the  judiciary  his  views  were  also  sound. 
He  upheld  the  power  of  the  judges,  and  main 
tained  that  they  should  have  absolute  decision 
as  to  the  constitutionality  of  any  law.  By 
this  means  he  hoped  to  provide  against  the 
encroachments  of  the  popular  branch  of  the 
government,  the  one  from  which  danger  was 
to  be  feared,  as  ''virtuous  citizens  will  often 
act  as  legislators  in  a,  way  of  which  they  would, 
as  private  individuals,  afterwards  be  ashamed." 
He  wisely  disapproved  of  low  salaries  for  the 
judges,  showing  that  the  amounts  must  be  fixed 
from  time  to  time  in  accordance  with  the 
manner  and  style  of  living  in  the  country  ;  and 
that  good  work  on  the  bench,  where  it  was 
especially  needful,  like  good  work  everywhere 
else,  could  only  be  insured  by  a  high  rate  of 
recompense.  On  the  other  hand,  he  approved 
of  introducing  into  the  national  Constitution 
the  foolish  New  York  state  inventions  of  a 
Council  of  Revision  and  an  Executive  Council. 


156  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

His  ideas  of  the  duties  and  powers  of  Con 
gress  were  likewise  very  proper  on  the  whole. 
Most  citizens  of  the  present  day  will  agree 
with  him  that  "  the  excess  rather  than  the 
deficiency  of  laws  is  what  we  have  to  dread." 
He  opposed  the  hurtful  provision  which  re 
quires  that  each  congressman  should  be  a 
resident  of  his  own  district,  urging  that  con 
gressmen  represented  the  people  at  large,  as 
well  as  their  own  small  localities  ;  and  he  also 
objected  to  making  officers  of  the  army  and 
navy  ineligible.  He  laid  much  stress  on  the 
propriety  of  passing  navigation  acts  to  encour 
age  American  bottoms  and  seamen,  as  a  navy 
was  essential  to  our  security,  and  the  shipping 
business  was  always  one  that  stood  in  peculiar 
need  of  public  patronage.  Also,  like  Hamilton 
and  most  other  Federalists,  he  favored  a  policy 
of  encouraging  domestic  manufactures.  Inci 
dentally  he  approved  of  Congress  having  the 
power  to  lay  an  embargo,  although  he  has  else 
where  recorded  his  views  as  to  the  general 
futility  of  such  kinds  of  "commercial  warfare." 
He  believed  in  having  a  uniform  bankruptcy 
law  ;  approved  of  abolishing  all  religious  tests 
as  qualifications  for  office,  and  was  utterly  op 
posed  to  the  "  rotation  in  office  "  theory. 

One  curious  incident  in  the   convention  was 
the  sudden  outcropping,  even  thus  early,  of  a 


FORMATION  OF  THE   CONSTITUTION.      157 

"  Native  American  "  movement  against  all  for 
eigners,  which  was  headed  by  Butler,  of  South 
Carolina,  who  himself  was  of  Irish  parent 
age.  He  strenuously  insisted  that  no  foreigners 
whomsoever  should  be  admitted  to  our  councils, 
—  a  rather  odd  proposition,  considering  that  it 
would  have  excluded  quite  a  number  of  the 
eminent  men  he  was  then  addressing.  Pennsyl 
vania  in  particular  —  whose  array  of  native 
talent  has  always  been  far  from  imposing  —  had 
a  number  of  foreigners  among  her  delegates, 
and  loudly  opposed  the  proposition,  as  did  New 
York.  These  States  wished  that  there  should 
be  no  discrimination  whatever  between  native 
and  foreign  born  citizens ;  but  finally  a  com 
promise  was  agreed  to,  by  which  the  latter 
were  excluded  only  from  the  Presidency,  but 
were  admitted  to  all  other  rights  after  a  seven 
years'  residence,  —  a  period  that  was  certainly 
none  too  long. 

A  much  more  serious  struggle  took  place 
over  the  matter  of  slavery,  quite  as  important 
then  as  ever,  for  at  that  time  the  negroes  were 
a  fifth  of  our  population,  instead  of,  as  now, 
an  eighth.  The  question,  as  it  came  before 
the  convention,  had  several  sides  to  it;  the 
especial  difficulty  arising  over  the  represen 
tation  of  the  Slave  States  in  Congress,  and  the 
importation  of  additional  slaves  from  Africa. 


158  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

No  one  proposed  to  abolish  slavery  off-hand  ; 
but  an  influential  though  small  number  of 
delegates,  headed  by  Morris,  recognized  it  as 
a  terrible  evil,  and  were  very  loath  either  to 
allow  the  South  additional  representation  for 
the  slaves,  or  to  permit  the  foreign  trade  in 
them  to  go  on.  When  the  Southern  members 
banded  together  on  the  issue,  and  made  it  evi 
dent  that  it  was  the  one  which  they  regarded 
as  almost  the  most  important  of  all,  Morris  at 
tacked  them  in  a  telling  speech,  stating  with 
his  usual  boldness  facts  that  most  Northerners 
only  dared  hint  at,  and  summing  up  with  the 
remark  that,  if  he  was  driven  to  the  dilemma 
of  doing  injustice  to  the  Southern  States  or  to 
human  nature,  he  would  have  to  do  it  to  the 
former ;  certainly  he  would  not  encourage  the 
slave  trade  by  allowing  representation  for 
negroes.  Afterwards  he  characterized  the  pro 
portional  representation  of  the  blacks  even 
more  strongly,  as  being  "  a  bribe  for  the  im 
portation  of  slaves." 

In  advocating  the  proposal,  first  made  by 
Hamilton,  that  the  representation  should  in  all 
cases  be  proportioned  to  the  number  of  free 
inhabitants,  Morris  showed  the  utter  lack  of 
logic  in  the  Virginian  proposition,  which  was 
that  the  Slave  States  should  have  additional 
representation  to  the  extent  of  three  fifths  of 


FORMATION  OF  THE  CONSTITUTION.      159 

their  negroes.  If  negroes  were  to  be  considered 
as  inhabitants,  then  they  ought  to  be  added  in 
their  entire  number;  if  they  were  to  be  consid 
ered  as  property,  then  they  ought  to  be  counted 
only  if  all  other  wealth  was  likewise  included. 
The  position  of  the  Southerners  was  ridiculous : 
he  tore  their  arguments  to  shreds  ;  but  he  was 
powerless  to  alter  the  fact  that  they  were 
doggedly  determined  to  carry  their  point,  while 
most  of  the  Northern  members  cared  compara 
tively  little  about  it. 

In  another  speech  lie  painted  in  the  blackest 
colors  the  unspeakable  misery  and  wrong 
wrought  by  slavery,  and  showed  the  blight  it 
brought  upon  the  land.  "  It  was  the  curse  of 
Heaven  on  the  states  where  it  prevailed."  He 
contrasted  the  prosperity  and  happiness  of  the 
Northern  States  with  the  misery  and  poverty 
which  overspread  the  barren  wastes  of  those 
where  slaves  were  numerous.  "  Every  step  you 
take  through  the  great  region  of  slavery  pre 
sents  a  desert  widening  with  the  increasing 
number  of  these  wretched  beings."  He  indig 
nantly  protested  against  the  Northern  States 
being  bound  to  march  their  militia  for  the 
defense  of  the  Southern  States  against  the 
very  slaves  of  whose  existence  the  northern  men 
complained.  u  He  would  sooner  submit  himself 
to  a  tax  for  paying  for  all  the  negroes  in  the 


160  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

United  States  than  saddle  posterity  with  such 
a  Constitution." 

Some  of  the  high-minded  Virginian  states 
men  were  quite  as  vigorous  as  he  was  in  their 
denunciation  of  the  system.  One  of  them, 
George  Mason,  portrayed  the  effect  of  slavery 
upon  the  people  at  large  with  bitter  emphasis, 
and  denounced  the  slave  traffic  as  "infernal," 
and  slavery  as  a  national  sin  that  would  be 
punished  by  a  national  calamity,  —  stating  there 
in  the  exact  and  terrible  truth.  In  shameful  con 
trast,  many  of  the  Northerners  championed  the 
institution  ;  in  particular,  Oliver  Ellsworth,  of 
Connecticut,  whose  name  should  be  branded  with 
infamy  because  of  the  words  he  then  uttered. 
He  actually  advocated  the  free  importation  of 
negroes  into  the  South  Atlantic  States,  because 
the  slaves  "  died  so  fast  in  the  sickly  rice 
swamps  "  that  it  was  necessary  ever  to  bring 
fresh  ones  to  labor  and  perish  in  the  places  of 
their  predecessors  ;  and,  with  a  brutal  cynicism, 
peculiarly  revolting  from  its  mercantile  base 
ness,  he  brushed  aside  the  question  of  morality 
as  irrelevant,  asking  his  hearers  to  pay  heed 
only  to  the  fact  that  "  what  enriches  the  part 
enriches  the  whole." 

The  Virginians  were  opposed  to  the  slave 
trade  ;  but  South  Carolina  and  Georgia  made 
it  a  condition  of  their  coming  into  the  Union. 


FORMATION  OF  THE  CONSTITUTION.       161 

It  was  accordingly  agreed  that  it  should  be 
allowed  for  a  limited  time,  —  twelve  years  ; 
and  this  was  afterwards  extended  to  twenty  by 
a  bargain  made  by  Maryland  and  the  three 
South  Atlantic  States  with  the  New  England 
States,  the  latter  getting  in  return  the  help  of 
the  former  to  alter  certain  provisions  respect 
ing  commerce.  One  of  the  main  industries  of 
the  New  England  of  that  day  was  the  manufac 
ture  of  rum  ;  and  its  citizens  cared  more  for 
their  distilleries  than  for  all  the  slaves  held  in 
bondage  throughout  Christendom.  The  rum 
was  made  from  molasses  which  they  imported 
from  the  West  Indies,  and  they  carried  there  in 
return  the  fish  taken  by  their  great  fishing 
fleets ;  they  also  carried  the  slaves  into  the 
Southern  ports.  Their  commerce  was  what 
they  especially  relied  on ;  and  to  gain  support 
for  it  they  were  perfectly  willing  to  make 
terms  with  even  such  a  black  Mammon  of  un 
righteousness  as  the  Southern  slaveholding  sys 
tem.  Throughout  the  contest,  Morris  and  a 
few  other  stout  anti-slavery  men  are  the  only 
ones  who  appear  to  advantage  ;  the  Virginians,' 
who  were  honorably  anxious  to  minimize  the 
evils  of  slavery,  come  next ;  then  the  other 
Southerners  who  allowed  pressing  self-interest 
to  overcome  their  scruples  ;  and,  last  of  all,  the 
New  Englanders  whom  a  comparatively  trivial 


162  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

self-interest  made  the  willing  allies  of  the  ex 
treme  slaveholders.  These  last  were  the  only 
Northerners  who  yielded  anything  to  the  South 
ern  slaveholders  that  was  not  absolutely  neces 
sary  ;  and  yet  they  were  the  forefathers  of  the 
most  determined  and  effective  foes  that  slavery 
ever  had. 

As  already  said,  the  Southerners  stood  firm 
on  the  slave  question:  it  was  the  one  which 
perhaps  more  than  any  other  offered  the  most 
serious  obstacle  to  a  settlement.  Madison 
pointed  out  "  that  the  real  difference  lay,  not 
between  the  small  States  and  the  large,  but 
between  the  Northern  and  the  Southern  States. 
The  institution  of  slavery  and  its  consequences 
formed  the  real  line  of  discrimination."  To 
talk  of  this  kind  Morris  at  first  answered  hotly 
enough:  — "he  saw  that  the  Southern  gentle 
men  would  not  be  satisfied  unless  they  saw  the 
way  open  to  their  gaining  a  majority  in  the  pub 
lic  councils.  ...  If  [the  distinction  they  set  up 
between  the  North  and  South]  was  real,  instead 
of  attempting  to  blend  incompatible  things,  let 
them  at  once  take  a  friendly  leave  of  each 
other."  He  afterwards  went  back  from  this 
position,  and  agreed  to  the  compromise  by 
which  the  slaves  were  to  add,  by  three  fifths  of 
their  number,  to  the  representation  of  their 
masters,  and  the  slave  trade  was  to  be  allowed 


FORMATION  OF  THE  CONSTITUTION.      163 

for  a  certain  number  of  years,  and  prohibited 
forever  after.  He  showed  his  usual  straight 
forward  willingness  to  call  things  by  their  right 
names  in  desiring  to  see  "  slavery "  named 
outright  in  the  Constitution,  instead  of  being 
characterized  with  cowardly  circumlocution,  as 
was  actually  done. 

In  finally  yielding  and  assenting  to  a  com 
promise,  he  was  perfectly  right.  The  crazy 
talk  about  the  iniquity  of  consenting  to  any 
recognition  of  slavery  whatever  in  the  Con 
stitution  is  quite  beside  the  mark;  and  it  is 
equally  irrelevant  to  assert  that  the  so-called 
44  compromises  "  were  not  properly  compromises 
at  all,  because  there  were  no  mutual  conces 
sions,  and  the  Southern  States  had  u  no  shadow 
of  right  "  to  what  they  demanded  and  only  in 
part  gave  up.  It  was  all-important  that  there 
should  be  a  Union,  but  it  had  to  result  from 
the  voluntary  action  of  all  the  states  ;  and  each 
state  had  a  perfect  "  right "  to  demand  just 
whatever  it  chose.  The  really  wise  and  high- 
minded  statesmen  demanded  for  themselves 
nothing  save  justice:  but  they  had  to  accom 
plish  their  purpose  by  yielding  somewhat  to  the 
prejudices  of  their  more  foolish  and  less  disin 
terested  colleagues.  It  was  better  to  limit  the 
duration  of  the  slave  trade  to  twenty  years  than 
to  allow  it  to  be  continued  indefinitely,  as  would 


164  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

have  been  the  case  had  the  South  Atlantic 
States  remained  by  themselves.  The  three 
fifths  representation  of  the  slaves  was  an  evil 
anomaly,  but  it  was  no  worse  than  allowing 
the  small  states  equal  representation  in  the 
Senate ;  indeed,  balancing  the  two  concessions 
against  each  other,  it  must  be  admitted  that 
Virginia  and  North  Carolina  surrendered  to 
New  Hampshire  and  Rhode  Island  more  than 
they  got  in  return. 

No  man  who  supported  slavery  can  ever  have 
a  clear  and  flawless  title  to  our  regard ;  and 
those  who  opposed  it  merit,  in  so  far,  the 
highest  honor ;  but  the  opposition  to  it  some 
times  took  forms  that  can  be  considered  only 
as  the  vagaries  of  lunacy.  The  only  hope  of 
abolishing  it  lay,  first  in  the  establishment 
and  then  in  the  preservation  of  the  Union ; 
and  if  we  had  at  the  outset  dissolved  into  a 
knot  of  struggling  anarchies,  it  would  have 
entailed  an  amount  of  evil  both  on  our  race 
and  on  all  North  America,  compared  to  which 
the  endurance  of  slavery  for  a  century  or  two 
would  have  been  as  nothing.  If  we  had  even 
split  up  into  only  two  republics,  a  Northern 
and  a  Southern,  the  West  would  probably  have 
gone  with  the  latter,  and  to  this  day  slavery 
would  have  existed  throughout  the  Mississippi 
valley ;  much  of  what  is  now  our  territory 


FORMATION  OF  THE   CONSTITUTION.      165 

would  have  been  held  by  European  powers, 
scornfully  heedless  of  our  divided  might,  while 
in  not  a  few  states  the  form  of  government 
would  have  been  a  military  dictatorship;  and 
indeed  our  whole  history  would  have  been  as 
contemptible  as  was  that  of  Germany  for  some 
centuries  prior  to  the  rise  of  the  house  of  Hohen- 
zollern. 

The  fierceness  of  the  opposition  to  the  adop 
tion  of  the  Constitution,  and  the  narrowness 
of  the  majority  by  which  Virginia  and  New 
York  decided  in  its  favor,  while  North  Carolina 
and  Rhode  Island  did  not  come  in  at  all  until 
absolutely  forced,  showed  that  the  refusal  to 
compromise  on  any  one  of  the  points  at  issue 
would  have  jeopardized  everything.  Had  the 
slavery  interest  been  in  the  least  dissatisfied,  or 
had  the  plan  of  government  been  a  shade  less 
democratic,  or  had  the  smaller  States  not  been 
propitiated,  the  Constitution  would  have  been 
rejected  off-hand ;  and  the  country  would  have 
had  before  it  decades,  perhaps  centuries,  of 
misrule,  violence,  and  disorder. 

Madison  paid  a  very  just  compliment  to  some 
of  Morris's  best  points  when  he  wrote,  anent 
his  services  in  the  convention  :  "  To  the  bril 
liancy  of  his  genius  he  added,  what  is  too  nire, 
a  candid  surrender  of  his  opinions  when  the 
light  of  discussion  satisfied  him  that  they  had 


166  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

been  too  hastily  formed,  and  a  readiness  to  aid 
in  making  the  best  of  measures  in  which  he 
had  been  overruled."  Although  so  many  of 
his  own  theories  had  been  rejected,  he  was  one 
of  the  warmest  advocates  of  the  Constitution  ; 
and  it  was  he  who  finally  drew  up  the  docu 
ment  and  put  the  finish  to  its  style  and  arrange 
ment,  so  that,  as  it  now  stands,  it  comes  from 
his  pen. 

Hamilton,  who  more  than  any  other  man 
bore  the  brunt  of  the  fight  for  its  adoption, 
asked  Morris  to  help  him  in  writing  the 
"  Federalist,"  but  the  latter  was  for  some  reason 
unable  to  do  so ;  and  Hamilton  was  assisted 
only  by  Madison,  and  to  a  very  slight  extent 
by  Jay.  Pennsylvania,  the  State  from  which 
Morris  had  been  sent  as  a  delegate,  early  de 
clared  in  favor  of  the  new  experiment ;  although, 
as  Morris  wrote  Washington,  there  had  been 
cause  to  "  dread  the  cold  and  sour  temper  of 
the  back  counties,  and  still  more  the  wicked 
industry  of  those  who  have  Icng  habituated 
themselves  to  live  on  the  public,  and  cannot 
bear  the  idea  of  being  removed  from  the  power 
and  profit  of  state  government,  which  has 
been  and  still  is  the  means  of  supporting  them 
selves,  their  families,  and  dependents,  and  (which 
perhaps  is  equally  grateful)  of  depressing  and 
humbling  their  political  adversaries."  In  his 


FORMATION  OF  THE  CONSTITUTION.       167 

own  native  state  of  New  York  the  influences 
he  thus  describes  were  still  more  powerful,  and 
it  needed  all  Hamilton's  wonderful  genius  to 
force  a  ratification  of  the  Constitution  in  spite 
of  the  stupid  selfishness  of  the  Clintonian 
faction  ;  as  it  was,  he  was  only  barely  success 
ful,  although  backed  by  all  the  best  and  ablest 
leaders  in  the  community,  —  Jay,  Livingstone, 
Sclmyler,  Stephen  Van  Rensselaer,  Isaac 
Roosevelt,  James  Duane,  and  a  host  of  others. 
About  this  time  Morris  came  back  to  New 
York  to  live,  having  purchased  the  family 
estate  at  Morrisania  from  his  elder  brother, 
Staats  Long  Morris,  the  British  general.  He 
had  for  some  time  been  j^ngaged  in  ^ariotfif 
successful  commercial  ventures  with  his  friend 
Robert  Morris,  including  an  East  India  voyage 
on  a  large  scale,  shipments  of  tobacco  to 
France,  and  a  share  in  iron  works  on  the  Del 
aware  River,  and  had  become  quite  a  rich  man. 
As  soon  as  the  war  was  ended,  he  had  done 
what  he  could  do  to  have  the  loyalists  pardoned 
and  reinstated  in  their  fortunes  ;  thereby  risk 
ing  his  popularity  not  a  little,  as  the  general 
feeling  against  the  Tories  was  bitter  and  male 
volent  in  the  highest  degree,  in  curious  con 
trast  to  the  good-will  that  so  rapidly  sprang  up 
between  the  Unionists  and  ex-Confederates  after 
the  Civil  War. 


168  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

He  also  kept  an  eye  on  foreign  politics,  and 
one  of  his  letters  to  Jay  curiously  foreshadows 
the  good-will  generally  felt  by  Americans  of 
the  present  day  towards  Russia,  running :  "  If 
her  ladyship  (the  Czarina)  would  drive  the 
Turk  out  of  Europe,  and  demolish  the  Algerines 
and  other  piratical  gentry,  she  will  have  done 
us  much  good  for  her  own  sake ;  .  .  .  but  it  is 
hardly  possible  the  other  powers  will  permit 
Russia  to  possess  so  wide  a  door  into  the  Medi 
terranean.  I  may  be  deceived,  but  I  think 
England  herself  would  oppose  it.  As  an  Amer 
ican,  it  is  my  hearty  wish  that  she  may  effect 
her  schemes." 

Shortly  after  this  it  became  necessary  for 
him  to  sail  for  Europe  on  business. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

FIRST   STAY  IN  FRANCE.  * 

AFTER  a  hard  winter  passage  of  forty  days' 
length  Morris  reached  France,  and  arrived  in 
Paris  on  February  3,  1789.  He  remained  there 
a  year  on  his  private  business ;  but  his  pro 
minence  in  America,  and  his  intimate  friend 
ship  with  many  distinguished  Frenchmen,  at 
once  admitted  him  to  the  highest  social  and 
political  circles,  where  his  brilliant  talents  se 
cured  him  immediate  importance. 

The  next  nine  years  of  his  life  were  spent  in 
Europe,  and  it  was  during  this  time  that  he  un 
knowingly  rendered  his  especial  and  peculiar 
service  to  the  public.  As  an  American  states 
man  he  has  many  rivals,  and  not  a  few  supe 
riors  ;  but  as  a  penetrating  observer  and  re 
corder  of  contemporary  events,  he  stands  alone 
among  the  men  of  his  time.  He  kept  a  full 
diary  during  his  stay  abroad,  and  was  a  most 
voluminous  correspondent  ;  and  his  capacity 
for  keen,  shrewd  observation,  his  truthfulness, 
his  wonderful  insight  into  character,  his  sense 


170  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

of  humor,  and  his  power  of  graphic  descrip 
tion,  all  combine  to  make  his  comments  on  the 
chief  men  and  events  of  the  day  a  unique 
record  of  the  inside  history  of  Western  Europe 
during  the  tremendous  convulsions  of  the 
French  Revolution.  He  is  always  an  enter 
taining  and  in  all  matters  of  fact  a  trust 
worthy  writer.  His  letters  and  diary  together 
form  a  real  mine  of  wealth  for  the  student 
either  of  the  social  life  of  the  upper  classes  in 
France  just  before  the  outbreak,  or  of  the 
events  of  the  Revolution  itself. 

In  the  first  place,  it  must  be  premised  that 
from  the  outset  Morris  was  hostile  to  the  spirit 
of  the  French  Revolution,  and  his  hostility  grew 
in  proportion  to  its  excesses  until  at  last  it 
completely  swallowed  up  his  original  antipathy 
to  England,  and  made  him  regard  France 
as  normally  our  enemy,  not  our  ally.  This  was 
perfectly  natural,  and  indeed  inevitable :  in 
all  really  free  countries,  the  best  friends  of 
freedom  regarded  the  revolutionists,  when  they 
had  fairly  begun  their  bloody  career,  with 
horror  and  anger.  It  was  only  to  oppressed, 
debased,  and  priest-ridden  peoples  that  the 
French  Revolution  could  come  as  the  embodi 
ment  of  liberty.  Compared  to  the  freedom  al 
ready  enjoyed  by  Americans,  it  was  sheer 
tyranny  of  the  most  dreadful  kind. 


FIRST  STAY  IN  FRANCE.  171 

Morris  saw  clearly  that  the  popular  party  in 
France,  composed  in  part  of  amiable  vision 
aries,  theoretic  philanthropists,  and  closet 
constitution-mongers,  and  in  part  of  a  brutal, 
sodden  populace,  maddened  by  the  grinding 
wrongs  of  ages,  knew  not  whither  its  own  steps 
tended  ;  and  he  also  saw  that  the  then  existing 
generation  of  Frenchmen  were  not,  and  never 
would  be,  fitted  to  use  liberty  aright.  It  is 
small  matter  for  wonder  that  he  could  not  see 
as  clearly  the  good  which  lay  behind  the 
movement ;  that  he  could  not  as  readily  fore 
tell  the  real  and  great  improvement  it  was 
finally  to  bring  about,  though  only  after  a  gener 
ation  of  hideous  convulsions.  Even  as  it  was, 
he  discerned  what  was  happening,  and  what 
was  about  to  happen,  more  distinctly  than  did 
any  one  else.  The  wild  friends  of  the  French 
Revolution,  especially  in  America,  supported  it 
blindly,  with  but  a  very  slight  notion  of  what 
it  really  signified.  Keen  though  Morris's  in 
tellectual  vision  was,  it  was  impossible  for  him 
to  see  what  future  lay  beyond  the  quarter  of  a 
century  of  impending  tumult.  It  did  not  lie 
within  his  powers  to  applaud  the  fiendish  atroc 
ities  of  the  Red  Terror  for  the  sake  of  the  prob 
lematical  good  that  would  come  to  the  next 
generation.  To  do  so  he  would  have  needed 
the  granite  heart  of  a  zealot,  as  well  as  the  pro 
phetic  vision  of  a  seer. 


172  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

The  French  Revolution  was  in  its  essence 
a  struggle  for  the  abolition  of  privilege,  and 
for  equality  in  civil  rights.  This  Morris  per 
ceived,  almost  alone  among  the  statesmen  of 
his  day ;  and  he  also  perceived  that  most 
Frenchmen  were  willing  to  submit  to  any  kind 
of  government  that  would  secure  them  the 
things  for  which  they  strove.  As  he  wrote  to 
Jefferson,  when  the  republic  was  well  under 
weigh  :  "  The  great  mass  of  the  French  nation 
is  less  solicitous  to  preserve  the  present  order  of 
things  than  to  prevent  the  return  of  the  ancient 
oppression,  and  of  course  would  more  readily 
submit  to  a  pure  despotism  than  to  that  kind 
of  monarchy  whose  only  limits  were  found  in 
those  noble,  legal  and  clerical  corps  by  which 
the  people  were  alternately  oppressed  and  in 
sulted."  To  the  down-trodden  masses  of  con 
tinental  Europe  the  gift  of  civil  rights  and 
the  removal  of  the  tyranny  of  the  privileged 
classes,  even  though  accompanied  by  the  rule 
of  a  directory,  a  consul,  or  an  emperor,  rep 
resented  an  immense  political  advance ;  but 
to  the  free  people  of  England,  and  to  the  freer 
people  of  America,  the  change  would  have 
been  wholly  for  the  worse. 

Such  being  the  case,  Morris's  attitude  was 
natural  and  proper.  There  is  no  reason  to 
question  the  sincerity  of  his  statement  in  an- 


FIRST  STAY  IN  FRANCE.  173 

other  letter,  that  "  I  do,  from  the  bottom  of  my 
heart,  wish  well  to  this  country  [France]." 
Had  the  French  people  shown  the  least  mod 
eration  or  wisdom,  he  would  have  unhesitat 
ingly  sided  with  them  against  their  oppressors. 
It  must  be  kept  in  mind  that  he  was  not  in 
fluenced  in  the  least  in  his  course  by  the  views 
of  the  upper  classes  with  whom  he  mingled.  On 
the  contrary,  when  he  first  came  to  Europe,  he 
distinctly  lost  popularity  in  some  of  the  social 
circles  in  which  he  moved,  because  he  was  so 
much  more  conservative  than  his  aristocratic 
friends,  among  whom  the  closet  republican 
ism  of  the  philosophers  was  for  the  moment 
all  the  rage.  He  had  no  love  for  the  French 
nobility,  whose  folly  and  ferocity  caused  the 
Revolution,  and  whose  craven  cowardice  could 
not  check  it  even  before  it  had  gathered  head 
way.  Long  afterwards  he  wrote  of  some  of  the 
emigres :  u  The  conversation  of  these  gentle 
men,  who  have  the  virtue  and  good  fortune  of 
their  grandfathers  to  recommend  them,  leads 
me  almost  to  forget  the  crimes  of  the  French 
Revolution;  and  often  the  unforgiving  temper 
and  sanguinary  wishes  which  they  exhibit 
make  me  almost  believe  that  the  assertion  of 
their  enemies  is  true,  namely,  that  it  is  success 
alone  which  lias  determined  on  whose  side 
should  be  the  crimes,  and  on  whose  the 


174  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

miseries."  The  truth  of  the  last  sentence  was 
strikingly  verified  by  the  White  Terror,  even 
meaner,  if  less  bloody,  than  the  Red.  Bourbon 
princes  and  Bourbon  nobles  were  alike,  and 
Morris  only  erred  in  not  seeing  that  their  de 
struction  was  the  condition  precedent  upon  all 
progress. 

There  was  never  another  great  struggle,  in 
the  end  productive  of  good  to  mankind,  where 
the  tools  and  methods  by  which  that  end  was 
won  were  so  wholly  vile  as  in  the  French 
Revolution.  Alone  among  movements  of  the 
kind,  it  brought  forth  no  leaders  entitled  to  our 
respect ;  none  who  were  both  great  and  good  ; 
none  even  who  were  very  great,  save,  at  its 
beginning,  strange,  strong,  crooked  Mirabeau, 
and  at  its  close  the  towering  world-genius  who 
sprang  to  power  by  its  means,  wielded  it  for  his 
own  selfish  purposes,  and  dazzled  all  nations 
over  the  wide  earth  by  the  glory  of  his  strength 
and  splendor. 

We  can  hardly  blame  Morris  for  not  appre 
ciating  a  revolution  whose  immediate  outcome 
was  to  be  Napoleon's  despotism,  even  though 
he  failed  to  see  all  the  good  that  would  remotely 
spring  therefrom.  He  considered,  as  he  once 
wrote  a  friend,  that  "  the  true  object  of  a  great 
statesman  is  to  give  to  any  particular  nation 
the  kind  of  laws  which  is  suitable  to  them, 


FIRST  STAY  IN  F^&NCE.  175 

and  the  best  constitution  which  they  are  capa 
ble  of."  There  can  be  no  sounder  rule  of  states 
manship  ;  and  none  was  more  flagrantly  broken 
by  the  amiable  but  incompetent  political  doc 
trinaires  of  1789.  Thus  the  American,  as  a 
far-sighted  statesman,  despised  the  theorists 
who  began  the  Revolution,  and,  as  a  humane 
and  honorable  man,  abhorred  the  black-hearted 
wretches  who  carried  it  on.  His  view  of  the 
people  among  whom  he  found  himself,  as  well 
as  his  statement  of  his  own  position,  he  himself 
has  recorded :  "  To  fit  people  for  a  republic, 
as  for  any  other  form  of  government,  a  pre 
vious  education  is  necessary.  ...  In  despotic 
governments  the  people,  habituated  to  behold 
ing  everything  bending  beneath  the  weight  of 
power,  never  possess  that  power  for  a  moment 
without  abusing  it.  Slaves,  driven  to  despair, 
take  arms,  execute  vast  vengeance,  and  then 
sink  back  to  their  former  condition  of  slaves. 
In  such  societies  the  patriot,  the  melancholy 
patriot,  sides  with  the  despot,  because  anything 
is  better  than  a  wild  and  bloody  confusion." 

So  much  for  an  outline  of  his  views.  His 
writings  preserve  them  for  us  in  detail  on  al 
most  every  important  question  that  came  up 
during  his  stay  in  Europe  ;  couched,  moreover, 
in  telling,  piquant  sentences  that  leave  room 
for  hardly  a  dull  line  in  either  letters  or  diary. 


176  GODVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

No  sooner  had  he  arrived  in  Paris  than  he 
sought  out  Jefferson,  then  the  American  minis 
ter,  and  Lafayette.  They  engaged  him  to  dine 
on  the  two  following  nights.  He  presented  his 
various  letters  of  introduction,  and  in  a  very 
few  weeks,  by  his  wit,  tact,  and  ability,  had 
made  himself  completely  at  home  in  what  was 
by  far  the  most  brilliant  and  attractive  —  al 
though  also  the  most  hopelessly  unsound  — 
fashionable  society  of  any  European  capital. 
He  got  on  equally  well  with  fine  ladies,  philos 
ophers,  and  statesmen  ;  was  as  much  at  his 
ease  in  the  salons  of  the  one  as  at  the  dinner- 
tables  of  the  other;  and  all  the  time  observed 
and  noted  down,  with  the  same  humorous  zest, 
the  social  peculiarities  of  his  new  fiiends  as 
well  as  the  tremendous  march  of  political 
events.  Indeed,  it  is  difficult  to  know  whether 
to  set  the  higher  value  on  his  penetrating  ob 
servations  concerning  public  affairs,  or  on  his 
witty,  light,  half-satirical  sketches  of  the  men 
and  women  of  the  world  with  whom  he  was 
thrown  in  contact,  told  in  his  usual  charming 
and  effective  style.  No  other  American  of 
note  has  left  us  writings  half  so  humorous  and 
amusing,  filled,  too,  with  information  of  the 
greatest  value. 

Although   his   relations   with   Jefferson  were 
at  this  time  very  friendly,  yet  his  ideas  on  most 


FIRST  STAY  IN  FRANCE.  177 

subjects  were  completely  at  variance  with  those 
of  the  latter.  He  visited  him  very  often ;  and, 
after  one  of  these  occasions,  jots  down  his  opin 
ion  of  his  friend  in  his  usual  amusing  vein : 
"  Call  on  Mr.  Jefferson,  and  sit  a  good  while. 
General  conversation  on  character  and  politics. 
I  think  he  does  not  form  very  just  estimates  of 
character,  but  rather  assigns  too  many  to  the 
humble  rank  of  fools;  whereas  in  life  the 
gradations  are  infinite,  and  each  individual  has 
his  peculiarities  of  fort  and  feeble  :  "  Not  a 
bad  protest  against  the  dangers  of  sweeping 
generalization.  Another  time  he  records  his 
judgment  of  Jefferson's  ideas  on  public  matters 
as  follows :  "  He  and  I  differ  in  our  systems  of 
politics.  He,  with  all  the  leaders  of  liberty 
here,  is  desirous  of  annihilating  distinctions 
of  order.  How  far  such  views  may  be  right 
respecting  mankind  in  general  is,  I  think,  ex 
tremely  problematical.  But  with  respect  to 
this  nation  I  am  sure  they  are  wrong,  and  can 
not  eventuate  well." 

As  soon  as  he  began  to  go  out  in  Parisian 
society,  he  was  struck  by  the  closet  repub 
licanism  which  it  had  become  the  fashion  to 
affect.  After  his  first  visit  to  Lafayette,  who 
received  him  with  that  warmth  and  frank,  open- 
handed  hospitality  which  he  always  extended  to 
Americans,  Morris  writes:  "Lafayette  is  full 


178  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

of  politics  ;  he  appears  to  be  too  republican  for 
the  genius  of  his  country."  And  again,  when 
Lafayette  showed  him  the  draft  of  the  cele 
brated  Declaration  of  Rights,  he  notes :  "  I 
gave  him  my  opinions,  and  suggested  several 
amendments  tending  to  soften  the  high-colored 
expressions  of  freedom.  It  is  not  by  sounding 
words  that  revolutions  are  produced."  Else 
where  he  writes  that  uthe  young  nobility  have 
brought  themselves  to  an  active  faith  in  the 
natural  equality  of  mankind,  and  spurn  at 
everything  which  looks  like  restraint."  Some 
of  their  number,  however,  he  considered  to  be 
actuated  by  considerations  more  tangible  than 
mere  sentiment.  He  chronicles  a  dinner  with 
some  members  of  the  National  Assembly, 
where  "one,  a  noble  representing  the  Tiers,  is 
so  vociferous  against  his  own  order,  that  I  am 
convinced  he  means  to  rise  by  his  eloquence, 
and  finally  will,  I  expect,  vote  with  the  opinion 
of  the  court,  let  that  be  what  it  may."  The 
sentimental  humanitarians — who  always  form 
a  most  pernicious  body,  with  an  influence  for 
bad  hardly  surpassed  by  that  of  the  profes 
sionally  criminal  class  —  of  course  throve  vigor 
ously  in  an  atmosphere  where  theories  of  mawk 
ish  benevolence  went  hand  in  hand  with  the 
habitual  practice  of  vices  too  gross  to  name. 
Morris,  in  one  of  his  letters,  narrates  an  in- 


FIRST  STAY  IN  FRANCE.  179 

stance  in  point ;  at  the  same  time  showing 
ho\v  this  excess  of  watery  philanthropy  was, 
like  all  the  other  movements  of  the  French 
Revolution,  but  a  violent  and  misguided  reac 
tion  against  former  abuses  of  the  opposite  sort. 
The  incident  took  place  in  Madame  de  Stael's 
salon.  "The  Count  de  Clermont  Tonnerre,  one 
of  their  best  orators,  read  to  us  a  very  pathetic 
oration ;  and  the  object  was  to  show  that  no 
penalties  are  the  legal  compensations  for  crimes 
or  injuries:  the  man  who  is  hanged,  having 
by  that  event  paid  his  debt  to  society,  ought 
not  to  be  held  in  dishonor ;  and  in  like  manner 
he  who  has  been  condemned  for  seven  years  to 
be  flogged  in  the  galleys,  should,  when  he  has 
served  out  his  apprenticeship,  be  received  again 
into  good  company,  as  if  nothing  had  happened. 
You  smile  ;  but  observe  the  extreme  to  which 
the  matter  was  carried  the  other  way.  Dis 
honoring  thousands  for  the  guilt  of  one  has  so 
shocked  the  public  sentiment  as  to  render  this 
extreme  fashionable.  The  oration  was  very 
fine,  very  sentimental,  very  pathetic,  and  the 
style  harmonious.  Shouts  of  applause  and  full 
approbation.  When  this  was  pretty  well  over, 
I  told  him  that  his  speech  was  extremely  elo 
quent,  but  that  his  principles  were  not  very 
solid.  Universal  surprise  !  " 

At  times  he  became  rather  weary  of  the  con- 


180  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

stant  discussion  of  politics,  which  had  become 
the  chief  drawing-room  topic.  Among  the  ca 
pacities  of  liis  lively  and  erratic  nature  was  the 
power  of  being  intensely  bored  by  anything 
dull  or  monotonous.  He  remarked  testily  that 
"  republicanism  was  absolutely  a  moral  influ 
enza,  from  which  neither  titles,  places,  nor  even 
the  diadem  can  guard  the  possessor."  In  a  let 
ter  to  a  friend  on  a  different  subject  he  writes : 
"  Apropos,  —  a  term  which  my  Lord  Chester 
field  well  observes  we  generally  use  to  bring 
in  what  is  not  at  all  to  the  purpose,  —  apropos, 
then,  I  have  here  the  strangest  employment 
imaginable.  A  republican,  and  just  as  it  were 
emerged  from  that  assembly  which  has  formed 
one  of  the  most  republican  of  all  republican 
constitutions,  I  preach  incessantly  respect  for 
the  prince,  attention  to  the  rights  of  the 
nobles,  and  above  all  moderation,  not  only  in 
the  object,  but  also  in  the  pursuit  of  it.  All 
this  you  will  say  is  none  of  my  business  ;  but  I 
consider  France  as  the  natural  ally  of  my  coun 
try,  and,  of  course,  that  we  are  interested  in  her 
prosperity  ;  besides,  to  say  the  truth,  I  love 
France." 

His  hostility  to  the  fashionable  cult  offended 
some  of  his  best  friends.  The  Lafayettes 
openly  disapproved  his  sentiments.  The 
Marquis  told  him  that  he  was  injuring  the 


FIRST  STAY  IN  FRANCE.  181 

cause,  because  his  sentiments  were  being  con 
tinually  quoted  against  "the  good  party." 
Morris  answered  that  he  was  opposed  to 
democracy  from  a  regard  to  liberty ;  that  the 
popular  party  were  going  straight  to  destruc 
tion,  and  he  would  fain  stop  them  if  he  could ; 
for  their  views  respecting  the  nation  were  to 
tally  inconsistent  with  the  materials  of  which 
it  was  composed,  and  the  worst  thing  that 
could  happen  to  them  would  be  to  have  their 
wishes  granted.  Lafayette  half  admitted 
that  this  was  true  :  "  He  tells  me  that  he  is 
sensible  his  party  are  mad,  and  tells  them  so, 
but  is  not  the  less  determined  to  die  with  them. 
I  tell  him  that  I  think  it  would  be  quite  as  well 
to  bring  them  to  their  senses  and  live  with 
them," — the  last  sentence  showing  the  impa 
tience  with  which  the  shrewd,  fearless,  prac 
tical  American  at  times  regarded  the  dreamy 
inefficiency  of  his  French  associates.  Madame 
de  Lafayette  was  even  more  hostile  than  her  hus 
band  to  Morris's  ideas.  In  commenting  on  her 
beliefs  he  says :  "  She  is  a  very  sensible  woman, 
but  has  formed  her  ideas  of  government  in  a 
manner  not  suited,  I  think,  either  to  the  situa 
tion,  the  circumstances,  or  the  disposition  of 
France." 

He  was  considered  too  much  of  an  aristocrat 
in  the   salon  of    the  Comtesse  de  Tesse,  the 


182  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

resort  of  "  republicans  of  the  first  feather  ;  " 
and  at  first  was  sometimes  rather  coldly  re 
ceived  there.  He  felt,  however,  a  most  sincere 
friendship  and  regard  for  the  comtesse,  and 
thoroughly  respected  the  earnestness  with 
which  she  had  for  twenty  years  done  what  lay 
in  her  power  to  give  her  country  greater 
liberty.  She  was  a  genuine  enthusiast,  and, 
when  the  National  Assembly  met,  was  filled 
with  exultant  hope  for  the  future.  The  fero 
cious  outbreaks  of  the  mob,  and  the  crazy  lust 
for  blood  shown  by  the  people  at  large,  startled 
her  out  of  her  faith,  and  shocked  her  into  the 
sad  belief  that  her  life-long  and  painful  labors 
had  been  wasted  in  the  aid  of  a  bad  cause. 
Later  in  the  year  Morris  writes  :  "  I  find 
Madame  cle  Tesse*  is  become  a  convert  to  my 
principles.  We  have  a  gay  conversation  of  some, 
minutes  on  their  affairs,  in  which  I  mingle 
sound  maxims  of  government  with  that  piquant 
leyerete  which  this  nation  delights  in.  She 
insists  that  I  dine  with  her  at  Versailles  the 
next  time  I  am  there.  We  are  vastly  gracious, 
and  all  at  once,  in  a  serious  tone,  '  Mais  at- 
tendez,  madame,  est-ce  que  je  suis  trop  aris 
tocrat  ?  '  To  which  she  answers,  with  a  smile  of 
gentle  humility,  *  Oh,  mon  Dieu,  non  !  ' 

It  is  curious  to  notice  how  rapidly  Morris's 
brilliant  talents  gave  him  a  commanding  posi- 


FIRST  STAY  IN  FRANCE.  183 

tion,  stranger  and  guest  though  he  was,  among 
the  most  noted  statesmen  of  France;  how 
often  he  was  consulted,  and  how  widely  his 
opinions  were  quoted.  Moreover,  his  incisive 
truthfulness  makes  his  writings  more  valuable 
to  the  historian  of  his  time  than  are  those  of 
any  of  his  contemporaries,  French,  English,  or 
American.  Taine,  in  his  great  work  on  the 
Revolution,  ranks  him  high  among  the  small 
number  of  observers  who  have  recorded  clear 
and  sound  judgments  of  those  years  of  confused, 
formless  tumult  and  horror. 

All  his  views  on  French  politics  are  very 
striking.  As  soon  as  he  reached  Paris,  he  was 
impressed  by  the  unrest  and  desire  for  change 
prevailing  everywhere,  and  wrote  home  :  "  I 
find  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic  a  resem 
blance  to  what  I  left  on  the  other,  —  a  nation 
which  exists  in  hopes,  prospects,  and  expec 
tations  ;  the  reverence  for  ancient  establish 
ments  gone  ;  existing  forms  shaken  to  the  very 
foundation  ;  and  a  new  order  of  things  about  to 
take  place,  in  which,  perhaps,  even  the  very 
names  of  all  former  institutions  will  be  disre 
garded."  And  again  :  "  This  country  presents 
an  astonishing  spectacle  to  one  who  has  col- 
'lected  his  ideas  from  books  and  information  half 
a  dozen  years  old.  Everything  is  a  VAnglaise, 
and  a  desire  to  imitate  the  English  prevails 


184  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

alike  in  the  cut  of  a  coat  and  the  form  of  a 
constitution.  Like  the  English,  too,  all  are 
engaged  in  parliamenteering ;  and  when  we 
consider  how  novel  this  last  business  must  be, 
I  assure  you  the  progress  is  far  from  contempt 
ible,"  -  a  reference  to  Lafayette's  electioneer 
ing  trip  to  Auvergne.  The  rapidity  with 
which,  in  America,  order  had  come  out  of  chaos, 
while  in  France  the  reverse  process  had  been 
going  on,  impressed  him  deeply  ;  as  he  says  : 
"  If  any  new  lesson  were  wanting  to  impress 
on  our  hearts  a  deep  sense  of  the  mutability 
of  human  affairs,  the  double  contrast  between 
France  and  America  two  years  ago  and  at  the 
present  would  surely  furnish  it." 

Pie  saw  at  once  that  the  revolutionists  had 
it  in  their  power  to  do  about  as  they  chose. 
"  If  there  be  any  real  vigor  in  the  nation  the 
prevailing  party  in  the  States-General  may,  if 
they  please,  overturn  the  monarchy  itself, 
should  the  king  commit  his  authority  to  a 
contest  with  them.  The  court  is  extremely 
feeble,  and  the  manners  are  so  extremely  cor 
rupt  that  they  cannot  succeed  if  there  be  any 
consistent  opposition,  unless  the  whole  nation 
be  equally  depraved." 

He  did  not  believe  that  the  people  would  be 
able  to  profit  by  the  revolution,  or  to  use  their 
opportunities  aright.  For  the  numerous  class 


FIRST  STAY  IN  FRANCE.  185 

of  patriots  who  felt  a  vague,  though  fervent, 
enthusiasm  for  liberty  in  the  abstract,  and  who, 
without  the  slightest  practical  knowledge,  were 
yet  intent  on  having  all  their  own  pet  theories 
put  into  practice,  he  felt  profound  scorn  and 
contempt ;  while  he  distrusted  and  despised  the 
mass  of  Frenchmen,  because  of  their  frivolity 
and  viciousness.  He  knew  well  that  a  pure 
theorist  may  often  do  as  much  damage  to  a 
country  as  the  most  corrupt  traitor  ;  and  very 
properly  considered  that  in  politics  the  fool  is 
quite  as  obnoxious  as  the  knave.  He  also 
realized  that  levity  and  the  inability  to  look 
life  seriously  in  the  face,  or  to  attend  to  the 
things  worth  doing,  may  render  a  man  just  as 
incompetent  to  fulfil  the  duties  of  citizenship 
as  would  actual  viciousness. 

To  the  crazy  theories  of  the  constitution- 
makers  and  closet  -  republicans  generally,  he 
often  alludes  in  his  diary,  and  in  his  letters 
home.  In  one  place  he  notes  :  "  The  literary 
people  here,  observing  the  abuses  of  the  mo 
narchical  form, imagine  that  everything  must  go 
the  better  in  proportion  as  it  recedes  from  the 
present  establishment,  and  in  their  closets  they 
make  men  exactly  suited  to  their  systems  ;  but 
unluckily  they  are  such  men  as  exist  nowhere 
else,  and  least  of  all  in  France."  And' he  writes 
almost  the  same  thing  to  Washington  :  "  The 


186  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

middle  party,  who  mean  well,  have  unfortu 
nately  acquired  their  ideas  of  government  from 
books,  and  are  admirable  fellows  upon  paper : 
but  as  it  happens,  somewhat  unfortunately,  that 
the  men  who  live  in  the  world  are  very  different 
from  those  who  dwell  in  the  heads  of  philoso 
phers,  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  if  the  systems 
taken  out  of  books  are  fit  for  nothing  but  to  be 
put  back  into  books  again."  And  once  more  : 
"  They  have  all  that  romantic  spirit,  and  all 
those  romantic  ideas  of  government,  which, 
happily  for  America,  we  were  cured  of  before 
it  was  too  late."  He  shows  how  they  had 
never  had  the  chance  to  gain  wisdom  through 
experience.  "As  they  have  hitherto  felt  se 
verely  the  authority  exercised  in  the  name  of 
their  princes,  every  ^limitation  of  that  power 
seems  to  them  desirable.  Never  having  felt 
the  evils  of  too  weak  an  executive,  the  disorders 
to  be  apprehended  from  anarchy  make  as  yet 
no  impression."  Elsewhere  he  comments  on 
their  folly  in  trying  to  apply  to  their  own 
necessities  systems  of  government  suited  to 
totally  different  conditions ;  and  mentions  his 
own  attitude  in  the  matter  :  "  I  have  steadily 
combated  the  violence  and  excess  of  those  per 
sons  who,  either  inspired  with  an  enthusiastic 
love  of  freedom,  or  prompted  by  sinister  designs, 
are  disposed  to  drive  everything  to  extremity. 


FIRST  STAY  IN  FRANCE.  187 

Our  American  example  has  done  them  good ; 
but,  like  all  novelties,  liberty  runs  away  with 
their  discretion,  if  they  have  any.  They  want 
an  American  constitution  with  the  exception  of 
a  King  instead  of  a  President,  without  reflecting 
that  they  have  not  American  citizens  to  support 
that  constitution.  .  .  .  Whoever  desires  to  ap 
ply  in  the  practical  science  of  government  those 
rules  and  forms  which  prevail  and  succeed  in  a 
foreign  country,  must  fall  into  the  same  ped 
antry  with  our  young  scholars,  just  fresh  from 
the  university,  who  would  fain  bring  everything 
to  the  Roman  standard.  .  .  .  The  scientific 
tailor  who  should  cut  after  Grecian  or  Chinese 
models  would  not  have  many  customers,  either 
in  London  or  Paris  ;  and  those  who  look  to 
America  for  their  political  forms  are  not  unlike 
the  tailors  in  Laputa,  who,  us  Gulliver  tells  us, 
always  take  measures  with  a  quadrant." 

He  shows  again  and  again  his  abiding  dis 
trust  and  fear  of  the  French  character,  as  it  was 
at  that  time,  volatile,  debauched,  ferocious,  and 
incapable  of  self-restraint.  To  Lafayette  he 
insisted  that  the  "  extreme  licentiousness "  of 
the  people  rendered  it  indispensable  that  they 
should  be  kept  under  authority ;  and  on  another 
occasion  told  him  "  that  the  nation  was  used  to 
being  governed,  and  would  have  to  be  governed ; 
and  tint  if  he  expected  to  lead  them  by  their 


188  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

affections,  he  would  himself  be  the  dupe."  In 
writing  to  Washington  he  painted  the  outlook 
in  colors  that,  though  black  indeed,  were  not  a 
shade  too  dark.  "  The  materials  for  a  revolu 
tion  in  this  country  are  very  indifferent.  Every 
body  agrees  that  there  is  an  utter  prostration 
of  morals ;  but  this  general  proposition  can  never 
convey  to  an  American  mind  the  degree  of  de 
pravity.  It  is  not  by  any  figure  of  rhetoric  or 
force  of  language  that  the  idea  can  be  commu 
nicated.  A  hundred  anecdotes  and  a  hundred 
thousand  examples  are  required  to  show  the 
extreme  rottenness  of  every  member.  There 
are  men  and  women  who  are  greatly  and  emi 
nently  virtuous.  I  have  the  pleasure  to  num 
ber  many  in  my  own  acquaintance  ;  bat  they 
stand  forward  from  a  background  deeply  and 
darkly  shaded.  It  is  however  from  such  crum 
bling  matter  that  the  great  edifice  of  freedom 
is  to  be  erected  here.  Perhaps  like  the  stratum 
of  rock  which  is  spread  under  the  whole  surface 
of  their  country,  it  may  harden  when  exposed 
to  the  air ;  but  it  seems  quite  as  likely  that  it 
will  fall  and  crush  the  builders.  I  own  to  you 
that  I  am  not  without  such  apprehensions,  for 
there  is  one  fatal  principle  which  pervades  all 
ranks.  It  is  a  perfect  indifference  to  the  viola 
tion  of  engagements.  Inconstancy  is  so  mingled 
in  the  blood,  marrow,  and  vcrv  <  ssence  of  this 


FIRST  STAY  IN  FRANCE.  189 

people,  that  when  a  man  of  high  rank  and  im 
portance  laughs  to-day  at  what  he  seriously 
asserted  yesterday,  it  is  considered  as  in  the 
natural  order  of  things.  Consistency  is  a  phe 
nomenon.  Judge,  then,  what  would  be  the 
value  of  an  association  should  such  a  thing  be 
proposed  and  even  adopted.  The  great  mass  of 
the  common  people  have  no  religion  but  their 
priests,  no  law  but  their  superiors,  no  morals 
but  their  interest.  These  are  the  creatures 
who,  led  by  drunken  curates,  are  now  on  the 
high  road  d  la  liberte" 

Morris  and  Washington  wrote  very  freely  to 
each  other.  In  one  of  his  letters,  the  latter 
gave  an  account  of  how  well  affairs  were  going 
in  America  (save  in  Rhode  Island,  the  major 
ity  of  whose  people  "  had  long  since  bid  adieu 
to  every  principle  of  honor,  common  sense,  and 
honesty"),  and  then  went  on  to  discuss  things 
in  France.  He  expressed  the  opinion  that,  if 
the  revolution  went  no  further  than  it  had  al 
ready  gone,  France  would  become  the  most 
powerful  and  happy  state  in  Europe ;  but  he 
trembled  lest,  having  triumphed  in  the  first 
paroxysms,  it  might  succumb  to  others  still 
more  violent  that  would  be  sure  to  follow.  He 
feared  equally  the  "licentiousness  of  the  peo 
ple  "  and  the  folly  of  the  leaders,  and  doubted 
if  they  possessed  the  requisite  temperance,  firm- 


190  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

ness,  and  foresight ;  and  if  they  did  not,  then 
he  believed  they  would  run  from  one  extreme 
to  another,  and  end  with  "  a  higher  toned  des 
potism  than  the  one  which  existed  before." 

Morris  answered  him  with  his  usual  half- 
satiric  humor  :  u  Your  sentiments  on  the  revolu 
tion  here  I  believe  to  be  perfectly  just,  because 
they  perfectly  accord  with  my  own,  and  that  is, 
you  know,  the  only  standard  which  Heaven  has 
given  us  by  which  to  judge,"  and  went  on  to 
describe  how  the  parties  in  France  stood.  "  The 
king  is  in  effect  a  prisoner  in  Paris  and  obeys 
entirely  the  National  Assembly.  This  assembly 
may  be  divided  into  three  parts :  one,  called 
the  aristocrats,  consists  of  the  high  clergy,  the 
members  of  the  law  (note,  these  are  not  the 
lawyers)  and  such  of  the  nobility  as  think  they 
ought  to  form  a  separate  order.  Another,  which 
has  no  name,  but  which  consists  of  all  sorts  of 
people,  really  friends  to  a  good  free  govern 
ment.  The  third  is  composed  of  what  is  here 
called  the  enragges,  that  is,  the  madmen.  These 
are  the  most  numerous,  and  are  of  that  class 
which  in  America  is  known  by  the  name  of 
pettifogging  lawyers;  together  with  .  .  .  those 
persons  who  in  all  revolutions  throng  to  the 
standard  of  change  because  they  are  not  well. 
This  last  party  is  in  close  alliance  with  the 
populace  here,  and  they  have  already  unhinged 


FIRST  STAY  IN  FRANCE.  191 

everything,  and,  according  to  custom  on  such 
occasions,  the  torrent  rushes  on  irresistibly  until 
it  shall  have  wasted  itself."  The  literati  he 
pronounced  to  have  no  understanding  whatever 
of  the  matters  at  issue,  and  as  was  natural  to  a 
shrewd  observer  educated  in  the  intensely  prac 
tical  school  of  American  political  life,  he  felt 
utter  contempt  for  the  wordy  futility  and  wild 
theories  of  the  French  legislators.  "  For  the 
rest,  they  discuss  nothing  in  their  assembly. 
One  large  half  of  the  time  is  spent  in  hallooing 
and  bawling." 

Washington  and  Morris  were  both  so  alarmed 
and  indignant  at  the  excesses  committed  by  the 
revolutionists,  and  so  frankly  expressed  their 
feelings,  as  to  create  an  impression  in  some 
quarters  that  they  were  hostile  to  the  revolution 
itself.  The  exact  reverse  was  originally  the 
case.  They  sympathized  most  warmly  with  the 
desire  for  freedom,  and  with  the  efforts  made  to 
attain  it.  Morris  wrote  to  the  President:  "  We 
have,  I  think,  every  reason  to  wish  that  the 
patriots  may  be  successful.  The  generous  wish 
that  a  free  people  must  have  to  disseminate 
freedom,  the  grateful  emotion  which  rejoices  in 
the  happiness  of  a  benefactor,  the  interest  \ve 
must  feel  as  well  in  the  liberty  as  in  the  power 
of  this  country,  all  conspire  to  make  us  far  from 
indifferent  spectators.  I  say  that  we  have  an 


192  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

interest  in  the  liberty  of  France.  The  leaders 
here  are  our  friends.  Many  of  them  have  im 
bibed  their  principles  in  America,  and  all  have 
been  fired  by  our  example.  Their  opponents 
are  by  no  means  rejoiced  at  the  success  of  our 
revolution,  and  many  of  them  are  disposed  to 
form  connections  of  the  strictest  kind  \vitli 
Great  Britain."  Both  Washington  and  Morris 
would  have  been  delighted  to  see  liberty  estab 
lished  in  France;  but  they  had  no  patience  with 
the  pursuit  of  the  bloody  chimera  which  the  rev 
olutionists  dignified  with  that  title.  The  one 
hoped  for,  and  the  other  counseled,  moderation 
among  the  friends  of  republican  freedom,  not 
because  they  were  opposed  to  it,  but  because 
they  saw  that  it  could  only  be  gained  and  kept 
by  self-restraint.  They  were,  to  say  the  least, 
perfectly  excusable  for  believing  that  at  that 
time  some  form  of  monarchy,  whether  under 
king,  dictator,  or  emperor,  was  necessary  to 
France.  Every  one  agrees  that  there  are  cer 
tain  men  wiser  than  their  fellows ;  the  only 
question  is  as  to  how  these  men  can  be  best 
chosen  out,  and  to  this  there  can  be  no  absolute 
answer.  No  mode  will  invariably  give  the 
best  results ;  and  the  one  that  will  come  near 
est  to  doing  so  under  given  conditions  will  not 
work  at  all  under  others.  Where  the  people 
are  enlightened  and  moral  they  are  themselves 


FIRST  STAY  IN  FRANCE.  193 

the  ones  to  choose  their  rulers  ;  and  such  a 
form  of  government  is  unquestionably  the  high 
est  of  any,  and  the  only  one  that  a  high-spirited 
and  really  free  nation  will  tolerate  ;  but  if  they 
are  corrupt  and  degraded,  they  are  unfit  for 
republicanism,  and  need  to  be  under  an  entirely 
different  system.  The  most  genuine  republican, 
if  he  has  any  common  sense,  does  not  believe  in 
a  democratic  government  for  every  race  and  in 
every  age. 

Morris  was  a  true  republican,  and  an  Ameri 
can  to  the  core.  He  was  alike  free  from  truck 
ling  subserviency  to  European  opinion,  —  a 
degrading  remnant  of  colonialism  that  unfor 
tunately  still  lingers  in  certain  limited  social 
and  literary  circles,  —  and  from  the  uneasy 
self-assertion  that  springs  partly  from  sensitive 
vanity,  and  partly  from  a  smothered  doubt  as 
to  one's  real  position.  Like  most  men  of  strong 
character,  he  had  no  taste  for  the  "  cosmopoli 
tanism  "  that  so  generally  indicates  a  weak 
moral  and  mental  make-up.  He  enjoyed  his 
stay  in  Europe  to  the  utmost,  and  was  intimate 
with  the  most  influential  men  and  charming 
women  of  the  time;  but  he  was  heartily  glad  to 
get  back  to  America,  refused  to  leave  it  again, 
and  always  insisted  that  it  was  the  most  pleas 
ant  of  all  places  in  which  to  live.  While  abroad 
he  was  simply  a  gentleman  among  gentlemen. 


194  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

He  never  intruded  his  political  views  or  national 
prejudices  upon  his  European  friends;  but  he 
was  not  inclined  to  suffer  any  imputation  on  his 
country.  Any  question  about  America  that 
was  put  in  good  faith,  no  matter  how  much  ig 
norance  it  displayed,  he  always  answered  good- 
hurnoredly  ;  and  he  gives  in  his  Diary  some 
amusing  examples  of  such  conversations.  Once 
he  was  cross-examined  by  an  inquisitive  French 
nobleman,  still  in  the  stage  of  civilization  which 
believes  that  no  man  can  be  paid  to  render  a 
service  to  another,  especially  a  small  service, 
and  yet  retain  his  self-respect  and  continue  to 
regard  himself  as  the  full  political  equal  of  his 
employer.  One  of  this  gentleman's  sagacious 
inquiries  was  as  to  how  a  shoemaker  could,  in 
the  pride  of  his  freedom,  think  himself  equal  to 
a  king,  and  yet  accept  an  order  to  make  shoes  ; 
to  which  Morris  replied  that  he  would  accept  it 
as  a  matter  of  business,  and  be  glad  of  the 
chance  to  make  them,  since  it  lay  in  the  line  of 
his  duty  ;  and  that  he  would  all  the  time  con 
sider  himself  at  full  liberty  to  criticise  his  vis 
itor,  or  the  king,  or  any  one  else,  who  lapsed 
from  his  own  duty.  After  recording  several 
queries  of  the  same  nature,  and  some  rather 
abrupt  answers,  the  Diary  for  that  day  closes 
rather  caustically  with  the  comment:  "This 
manner  of  thinking  and  speaking,  however,  is 
too  masculine  for  the  climate  I  am  now  in." 


FIRST  STAY  IN  FRANCE.  195 

In  a  letter  to  Washington  Morris  made  one 
of  his  usual  happy  guesses  —  if  forecasting  the 
future  by  the  aid  of  marvelous  insight  into  hu 
man  character  can  properly  be  called  a  guess  - 
as  to  what  would  happen  to  France:  "It  is  very 
difficult  to  guess  whereabouts  the  flock  will  set 
tle  when  it  flies  so  wild  ;  but  as  far  as  it  is  pos 
sible  to  guess  this  (late)  kingdom  will  be  cast 
into  a  congeries  of  little  democracies,  laid  out, 
not  according  to  rivers,  mountains,  etc.,  but 
with  the  square  and  compass  according  to  lati 
tude  and  longitude,"  and  adds  that  he  thinks 
so  much  fermenting  matter  will  soon  give  the 
nation  "  a  kind  of  political  colic." 

He  rendered    some  services  to   Washington 
that  did  not  come  in  the  line  of  his  public  duty. 
One  of  these  was  to  get  him  a  watch,  Wash 
ington  having    written  to  have  one  purchased 
in°Paris,  of  gold,  "  not  a  small,  trifling,  nor  a 
finical  ornamental  one,  but  a  watch  well  exe 
cuted  in  point  of  workmanship,  large  and  flat, 
with  a  plain,  handsome  key."     Morris  sent  it 
to  him  by  Jefferson,  "with  two  copper  keys  and 
one  golden  one,  and  a  box  containing  a  spare 
spring  and  glasses."     His  next  service  to  the 
great  Virginian,  or  rather  to  his  family,  was  of 
a  different  kind,  and  he  records  it  with  a  smile 
at  his  own  expense.    "  Go  to   M.  Hudon's ;  he 
has  been  waiting  for  me  a  long  time.     I  stand 


196  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

for  his  statue  of  General  Washington,  being  the 
humble  employment  of  a  manikin.  This  is 
literally  taking  the  advice  of  St.  Paul,  to  be 
all  tilings  to  all  men." 

He  corresponded  with  many  men  of  note  ; 
not  the  least  among  whom  was  the  daring  cor 
sair,  Paul  Jones.  The  latter  was  very  anxious 
to  continue  in  the  service  of  the  people  with 
whom  he  had  cast  in  his  lot,  and  in  command 
of  whose  vessels  he  had  reached  fame.  Morris 
was  obliged  to  tell  him  that  he  did  not  believe 
an  American  navy  would  be  created  for  some 
years  to  come,  and  advised  him  meanwhile  to 
go  into  the  service  of  the  Russians,  as  he  ex 
pected  there  would  soon  be  warm  work  on  the 
Baltic ;  and  even  gave  him  a  hint  as  to  what 
would  probably  be  the  best  plan  of  campaign. 
Paul  Jones  wanted  to  come  to  Paris ;  but  from 
this  Morris  dissuaded  him.  "  A  journey  to  this 
city  can,  I  think,  produce  nothing  but  the  ex 
pense  attending  it;  for  neither  pleasure  nor 
profit  can  be  expected  here,  by  one  of  your 
profession  in  particular ;  and,  except  that  it  is 
a  more  dangerous  residence  than  many  others, 
I  know  of  nothing  which  may  serve  to  you  as 
an  inducement." 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

LIFE  IN  PARIS. 

ALTHOUGH  Morris  entered  into  the  social 
life  of  Paris  with  all  the  zest  natural  to  his 
pleasure-loving  character,  yet  he  was  far  too 
clear-headed  to  permit  it  to  cast  any  glamour 
over  him.  Indeed,  it  is  rather  remarkable  that 
a  young  provincial  gentleman,  from  a  raw,  new, 
far-off  country,  should  not  have  had  his  head 
turned  by  being  made  somewhat  of  a  lion  in 
what  was  then  the  foremost  city  of  the  civi 
lized  world.  Instead  of  this  happening,  his 
notes  show  that  he  took  a  perfectly  cool  view 
of  his  new  surroundings,  and  appreciated  the 
over-civilized,  aristocratic  society,  in  which  he 
found  himself,  quite  at  its  true  worth.  He  en 
joyed  the  life  of  the  salon  very  much,  but  it 
did  not  in  the  least  awe  or  impress  him  ;  and  he 
was  of  too  virile  fibre,  too  essentially  a  man, 
to  be  long  contented  with  it  alone.  He  like 
wise  appreciated  the  fashionable  men,  and  es 
pecially  the  fashionable  women,  whom  he  met 
there ;  but  his  amusing  comments  on  them,  as 


198  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

shrewd  as  they  are  humorous,  prove  how  little 
he  ivspected  their  philosophy,  and  how  com 
pletely  indifferent  he  was  to  their  claims  to 
social  preeminence. 

Much  has  been  written  about  the  pleasure- 
loving,  highly  cultured  society  of  eighteenth- 
century  France;  but  to  a  man  like  Morris,  of 
real  ability  and  with  an  element  of  sturdiness 
in  his  make-up,  both  the  culture  and  knowl 
edge  looked  a  little  like  veneering ;  the  polish 
partook  of  effeminacy ;  the  pleasure  so  eagerly 
sought  after  could  be  called  pleasure  only  by 
people  of  ignoble  ambition  ;  and  the  life  that 
was  lived  seemed  narrow  and  petty,  agreeable 
enough  for  a  change,  but  dreary  beyond  meas 
ure  if  followed  too  long.  The  authors,  philoso 
phers,  and  statesmen  of  the  salon  were  rarely, 
almost  never,  men  of  real  greatness ;  their 
metal  did  not  ring  true ;  they  were  shams,  and 
the  life  of  which  they  were  a  part  was  a  sham. 
Not  only  was  the  existence  hollow,  unwhole 
some,  effeminate,  but  also  in  the  end  tedious : 
the  silent,  decorous  dullness  of  life  in  the  drea 
riest  country  town  is  not  more  insufferable 
than,  after  a  time,  become  the  endless  chatter, 
the  small  witticisms,  the  mock  enthusiasms,  and 
vapid  affectations  of  an  aristocratic  society  as 
artificial  and  unsound  as  that  of  the  Parisian 
drawing-rooms  in  the  last  century. 


LIFE  IN  PARIS.  199 

But  all  this  was  delightful  for  a  time,  es 
pecially  to  a  man  who  had  never  seen  any  city 
larger  than  the  overgrown  villages  of  New 
York  and  Philadelphia.  Morris  thus  sums  up 
his  first  impressions  in  a  letter  to  a  friend :  "  A 
man  in  Paris  lives  in  a  sort  of  whirlwind, 
which  turns  him  round  so  fast  that  he  can  see 
nothing.  And  as  all  men  and  things  are  in  the 
same  vertiginous  condition,  you  can  neither  fix 
yourself  nor  your  object  for  regular  examina 
tion.  Hence  the  people  of  this  metropolis  are 
under  the  necessity  of  pronouncing  their  defini 
tive  judgment  from  the  first  glance  ;  and  being 
thus  habituated  to  shoot  flying,  they  have  what 
sportsmen  call  a  quick  sight.  Ex  pede  Her 
culean.  They  know  a  wit  by  his  snuff-box,  a 
man  of  taste  by  his  bow,  and  a  statesman  by 
the  cut  of  his  coat.  It  is  true  that,  like  other 
sportsmen,  they  sometimes  miss ;  but  then,  like 
other  sportsmen  too,  they  have  a  thousand  ex 
cuses  besides  the  want  of  skill:  the  fault,  you 
know,  may  be  in  the  dog,  or  the  bird,  or  the 
powder,  or  the  flint,  or  even  the  gun,  without 
mentioning  the  gunner." 

Among  the  most  famous  of  the  salons  where 
he  was  fairly  constant  in  his  attendance  was 
that  of  Madame  de  Stael.  There  was  not  a  lit 
tle  contempt  mixed  with  his  regard  for  the 
renowned  daughter  of  Necker.  She  amused 


200  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

him,  however,  and  he  thought  well  of  her 
capacity,  though  in  his  Diary  he  says  that  he 
never  in  his  life  saw  "such  exuberant  vanity  " 
as  she  displayed  about  her  father,  Necker,  —  a 
very  ordinary  personage,  whom  the  convulsions 
of  the  time  had  for  a  moment  thrown  forward 
as  the  most  prominent  man  in  France.  By 
•way  of  instance  he  mentions  a  couple  of  her 
remarks,  one  to  the  effect  that  a  speech  of 
Talleyrand  on  the  church  property  was  "  ex 
cellent,  admirable,  in  short  that  there  were  two 
pages  in  it  which  were  worthy  of  M.  Necker ; " 
and  another  wherein  she  said  that  wisdom  was 
a  very  rare  quality,  and  that  she  knew  of  no 
one  who  possessed  it  in  a  superlative  degree  ex 
cept  her  father. 

The  first  time  he  met  her  was  after  an  ex 
citing  discussion  in  the  assembly  over  the 
finances,  which  he  describes  at  some  length. 
Necker  had  introduced  an  absurd  scheme  for  a 
loan.  Mirabeau,  who  hated  Necker,  saw  the 
futility  of  his  plan,  but  was  also  aware  that 
popular  opinion  was  blindly  in  his  favor,  and 
that  to  oppose  him  would  be  ruinous;  so  in  a 
speech  of  "  fine  irony  "  he  advocated  passing 
Necker's  proposed  bill  without  change  or  dis 
cussion,  avowing  that  his  object  was  to  have 
the  responsibility  and  glory  thrown  entirely  on 
the  proposer  of  the  measure.  He  thus  yielded 


LIFE  IN  PARIS.  201 

to  the  popular  view,  while  at  the  same  time  he 
shouldered  on  Necker  all  the  responsibility  for 
a  deed  which  it  was  evident  would  in  the  end 
ruin  him.  It  was  a  not  very  patriotic  move, 
although  a  good  example  of  selfish  political  tac 
tics,  and  Morris  sneered  bitterly  at  its  adoption 
by  the  representatives  of  a  people  who  prided 
themselves  on  being  "  the  modern  Athenians." 
To  his  surprise,  however,  even  Madame  de  Stael 
took  Mirabeau's  action  seriously  ;  she  went  into 
raptures  over  the  wisdom  of  the  assembly  in 
doing  just  what  Necker  said,  for  uthe  only 
thing  they  could  do  was  to  comply  with  her 
father's  wish,  and  there  could  be  no  doubt  as 
to  the  success  of  her  father's  plans  I  Bravo!  " 
With  Morris  she  soon  passed  from  politics 
to  other  subjects.  "  Presented  to  Madame  de 
Stael  as  un  Jiomme  <T  esprit^  he  writes,  "  she 
singles  me  out  and  makes  a  talk;  asks  if  I 
have  not  written  a  book  on  the  American  Con 
stitution.  4  Non,  madame,  j'ai  fait  mon  devoir 
en  assistant  a  la  formation  de  cette  constitu 
tion.'  '  Mais,  monsieur,  votre  conversation  doit 
etre  tres  interessante,  car  je  vous  entends  cite* 
de  toute  parti.'  4  Ah,  madame,  je  ne  suis  pas 
digne  de  cette  eloge.'  How  I  lost  ray  leg? 
It  was  unfortunately  not  in  the  military  service 
of  my  country.  fc  Monsieur,  vous  avez  Fair  tres 
imposant,'  and  this  is  accompanied  with  that 


202  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

look  which,  without  being  what  Sir  John  Fal- 
staff  calls  the  4leer  of  invitation,'  amounts  to 
the  same  thing.  .  .  .  This  leads  us  on,  but  in 
the  midst  of  the  chat  arrive  letters,  one  of 
which  is  from  her  lover,  Narbonne,  now  with 
his  regiment.  It  brings  her  to  a  little  recollec 
tion,  which  a  little  time  will,  I  think,  again 
banish,  and  a  few  interviews  would  stimulate 
her  to  try  the  experiment  of  her  fascinations 
even  on  the  native  of  a  new  world  who  has  left 
one  of  his  legs  behind  him." 

An  entry  in  Morris's  Diary  previous  to  this 
conversation  shows  that  he  had  no  very  high 
opinion  of  this  same  Monsieur  de  Narbonne  : 
"  He  considers  a  civil  war  inevitable,  and  is 
about  to  join  his  regiment,  being,  as  he  says,  in 
a  conflict  between  the  dictates  of  his  duty  and 
his  conscience.  I  tell  him  that  I  know  of  no 
duty  but  that  which  conscience  dictates.  I  pre 
sume  that  his  conscience  will  dictate  to  join  the 
strongest  side." 

Morris's  surmises  as  to  his  fair  friend's  happy 
forgetfulness  of  her  absent  lover  proved  true  : 
she  soon  became  bent  on  a  flirtation  with  the 
good-looking  American  stranger,  and  when  he 
failed  to  make  any  advances  she  promptly 
made  them  herself;  told  him  that  she  "rather 
invited  than  repelled  those  who  were  inclined 
to  be  attentive,"  and  capped  this  exhibition  of 


LIFE  IN  PARIS.  203 

modest    feminine   reserve    by   suggesting    that 
44  perhaps  he  might  become  an  admirer."     Mor 
ris  dryly  responded  that  it  was  not  impossible, 
but   that,  as    a    previous    condition,   she    must 
agree  not  to  repel  him,  —  which  she  instantly 
promised.     Afterwards,  at  dinner,  *'  we  become 
engaged  in  an  animated  conversation,  and  she 
desires   me  to   speak  English,  which  her  hus 
band  does  not  understand.     In  looking  round 
the  room,  I  observe  in  him  very  much  emotion, 
and  I  tell  her  that   he  loves  her  distractedly, 
which  she  says  she  knows,  and  that  it  renders 
her  miserable.  ...  I  condole  with  her  a  little 
on  her  widowhood,  the  Chevalier  de  Narbonne 
being  absent  in  Franche  Comte.  .  .  .  She  asks 
me  if  I  continue  to  think  she  has  a  preference 
for  Monsieur  de  Tonnerre.     I    reply   only  by 
observing  that  each  of  them  has  wit  enough  for 
one  couple,  and  therefore  I  think  they  had  bet 
ter  separate,  and  take  each  a  partner  who  is  un 
pen  bete.     After  dinner  I  seek  a  conversation 
with  the  husband,  which  relieves  him.     He  in 
veighs   bitterly    [poor,   honest   Swede]    against 
the  manners  of  the  country,  and  the  cruelty  of 
alienating  a  wife's  affection.    I  regret  witli  him 
on  general  grounds  that  prostitution  of  morals 
which   unfits   them   for  good   government,  and 
convince  him,  I  think,  I  shall  not  contribute  to 
making  him  any  more  uncomfortable  than  he 


204  GOUVKRNEUR  MORRIS. 

already  is."  Certainly,  according  to  Morris's 
evidence,  Madame  de  StaeTs  sensitive  delicacy 
could  only  be  truthfully  portrayed  by  the  un 
fettered  pen  of  a  Smollett. 

He  was  an  especial  habitug  of  the  salon  of 
Madame  de  Flahaut,  the  friend  of  Talleyrand 
and  Montesquieu.  She  was  a  perfectly  character 
istic  type  ;  a  clever,  accomplished  little  woman, 
fond  of  writing  romances,  and  a  thorough-paced 
intriguante.  She  had  innumerable  enthusiasms, 
with  perhaps  a  certain  amount  of  sincerity  in 
each,  and  was  a  more  infatuated  political 
schemer  than  any  of  her  male  friends.  She 
was  thoroughly  conversant  with  the  politics  of 
both  court  and  assembly  ;  her  "  precision  and 
justness  of  thought  was  very  uncommon  in 
either  sex,"  and,  as  time  went  on,  made  her  a 
willing  arid  useful  helper  in  some  of  Morris's 
plans.  Withal  she  was  a  mercenary,  self-seek 
ing  little  personage,  bent  on  increasing  her 
own  fortune  by  the  aid  of  her  political  friends. 
Once,  when  dining  with  Morris  and  Talley 
rand,  she  told  them  in  perfect  good  faith  that, 
if  the  latter  was  made  minister,  "  they  must  be 
sure  to  make  a  million  for  her." 

She  was  much  flattered  by  the  deference  that 
Morris  showed  for  her  judgment,  and  in  return 
let  him  into  not  a  few  state  secrets.  She  and 
he  together  drew  up  a  translation  of  the  outline 


LIFE   IN  PARIS.  205 

for  a  constitution  for  France,  which  he  had 
prepared,  and  through  her  it  was  forwarded  to 
the  king.  Together  with  her  two  other  inti 
mates,  Talleyrand  and  Montesquieu,  they  made 
just  a  party  of  four,  often  dining  at  her  house ; 
and  when  her  husband  was  sent  to  Spain,  the 
dinners  became  more  numerous  than  ever,  some 
times  merely  parties  carrees,  sometimes  very 
large  entertainments.  Morris  records  that, 
small  or  large,  they  were  invariably  "  excellent 
dinners,  where  the  conversation  was  always  ex 
tremely  gay." 

Once  they  planned  out  a  ministry  together, 
and  it  must  be  kept  in  mind  that  it  was  quite 
on  the  cards  that  their  plan  would  be  adopted. 
After  disposing  suitably  of  all  the  notabilities, 
some  in  stations  at  home,  others  in  stations 
abroad,  the  scheming  little  lady  turned  to  Mor 
ris  :  "'Enfin,'  she  says,  '  mon  ami,  vous  et  moi 
nous  gouvernerons  la  France.'  It  is  an  odd 
combination,  but  the  kingdom  is  actually  in 
much  worse  hands." 

This  conversation  occurred  one  morning 
when  he  had  called  to  find  madame  at  her 
toilet,  with  her  dentist  in  attendance.  It  was 
a  coarse  age,  for  all  the  gilding;  and  the  coarse 
ness  was  ingrained  in  the  fibre  even  of  the  most 
ultra  sentimental.  At  first  Morris  felt  perhaps 
a  little  surprised  at  the  easy  familiarity  with 


206  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

which  the  various  ladies  whose  friend  he  was 
admitted  him  to  the  privacy  of  boudoir  and 
bedroom,  and  chronicles  with  some  amusement 
the  graceful  indifference  with  which  one  of 
them  would  say  to  him:  " Monsieur  Morris  me 
permettra  de  faire  ma  toilette?"  But  he  \vas 
far  from  being  a  strait-laced  man,  —  in  fact, 
he  was  altogether  too  much  the  reverse,  —  and 
he  soon  grew  habituated  to  these  as  well  as  to 
mnch  worse  customs.  However,  he  notes  that 
the  different  operations  of  the  toilet  "  were  car 
ried  on  with  an  entire  and  astounding  regard 
to  modesty." 

Madame  de  Flahaut  was  a  very  charming 
member  of  the  class  who,  neither  toiling  nor 
spinning,  were  supported  in  luxury  by  those 
who  did  both,  and  who  died  from  want  while 
so  doing.  At  this  very  time,  while  France  was 
rapidly  drifting  into  bankruptcy,  the  fraudulent 
pensions  given  to  a  horde  of  courtiers,  titled 
placemen,  well-born  harlots  and  their  offspring, 
reached  the  astounding  total  of  two  hundred 
and  seventy  odd  millions  of  livres.  The  assem 
bly  passed  a  decree  cutting  away  these  pensions 
right  and  left,  and  thereby  worked  sad  havoc 
in  the  gay  society  that  nothing  could  render 
serious  but  immediate  and  pressing  poverty,  — 
not  even  the  loom  of  the  terror  ahead,  growing 
darker  moment  by  moment.  Calling  on  his 


LIFE  IN  PARIS.  207 

fascinating  little  friend  immediately  after  the 
decree  was  published,  Morris  finds  her  "an 
dSsespoir,  and  she  intends  to  cry  very  loud,  she 
says.  .  .  .  She  has  been  in  tears  all  day.  Her 
pensions  from  Monsieur  and  the  Comte  d'Artois 
are  stopped.  On  that  from  the  king  she  re 
ceives  but  three  thousand  francs,  —  and  must 
therefore  quit  Paris.  I  try  to  console  her,  but 
it  is  impossible.  Indeed,  the  stroke  is  severe  ; 
for,  with  youth,  beauty,  wit,  and  every  loveli 
ness,  she  must  quit  all  she  loves,  and  pass  her 
life  with  what  she  abhors."  In  the  time  of  ad 
versity  Morris  stood  loyally  by  the  friends  who 
had  treated  him  so  kindly  when  the  world  was 
a  merry  one,  and  things  went  well  with  them. 
He  helped  them  in  every  way  possible  ;  his 
time  and  his  purse  were  always  at  their  service ; 
and  he  performed  the  difficult  feat  of  giving  pe 
cuniary  assistance  with  a  tact  and  considerate 
delicacy  that  prevented  the  most  sensitive  from 
taking  offense. 

He  early  became  acquainted  with  the  Duchess 
of  Orleans,  wife  of  Philippe  Egalite,  the  vicious 
voluptuary  of  liberal  leanings  and  clouded  char 
acter.  He  met  her  at  the  house  of  an  old  friend, 
Madame  de  Chastellux.  At  first  he  did  not 
fancy  her,  and  rather  held  himself  aloof,  being 
uncertain  "  how  he  would  get  on  with  royalty." 
The  duchess,  however,  was  attracted  by  him, 


208  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

asked  after  him  repeatedly,  made  their  mutual 
friends  throw  them  together,  and  finally  so  man 
aged  that  he  became  one  of  her  constant  visitors 
and  attendants.  This  naturally  flattered  him, 
and  he  remained  sincerely  loyal  to  her  always 
afterwards.  She  was  particularly  anxious  that 
he  should  be  interested  in  her  son,  then  a  boy, 
afterwards  destined  to  become  the  citizen  king, 
—  not  a  bad  man,  but  a  mean  one,  and  rather 
an  unkingly  king  even  for  the  nineteenth  cen 
tury,  fertile  though  it  has  been  in  ignoble  roy 
alty.  Morris's  further  dealings  with  this  pre 
cious  youth  will  have  to  be  considered  hereafter. 
After  his  first  interview  he  notes  that  the 
duchess  was  "  handsome  enough  to  punish  the 
duke  for  his  irregularities."  He  also  mentioned 
that  she  still  seemed  in  love  with  her  husband. 
However,  the  lady  was  not  averse  to  seeking 
a  little  sentimental  consolation  from  her  new 
friend,  to  whom  she  confided,  in  their  after  in 
timacy,  that  she  was  weary  at  heart  and  not 
happy,  and  —  u  thoroughly  French  touch  — that 
she  had  the  "  besoin  d'etre  aime'e."  On  the  day 
they  first  met,  while  he  is  talking  to  her,  "  the 
widow  of  the  late  Duke  of  Orleans  comes  in,  and 
at  going  away,  according  to  custom,  kisses  the 
duchess.  I  observe  that  the  ladies  of  Paris  are 
very  fond  of  each  other;  which  gives  rise  to  some 
observations  from  her  royal  highness  on  the 


LIFE  IN  PARIS.  209 

person  who  has  just  quitted  the  room,  which 
show  that  the  kiss  does  not  always  betoken  great 
affection.  In  going  away  she  is  pleased  to  say 
that  she  is  glad  to  have  met  me,  and  I  believe 
her.  The  reason  is  that  I  dropped  some  ex 
pressions  and  sentiments  a  little  rough,  which 
were  agreeable  because  they  contrasted  with 
the  palling  polish  she  meets  with  everywhere. 
Hence  I  conclude  that  the  less  I  have  the  honor 
of  such  good  company  the  better  ;  for  when  the 
novelty  ceases  all  is  over,  and  I  shall  probably 
be  worse  than  insipid." 

Nevertheless,  the  "good  company"  was  deter 
mined  he  should  make  one  of  their  number. 
He  was  not  very  loath  himself,  when  he  found 
he  was  in  no  danger  of  being  patronized, —  for 
anything  like  patronage  was  always  particularly 
galling  to  his  pride,  which  was  of  the  kind  that 
resents  a  tone  of  condescension  more  fiercely 
than  an  overt  insult,  —  and  he  became  a  fast 
friend  of  the  house  of  Orleans.  The  duchess 
made  him  her  confidant ;  unfolded  to  him  her 
woes  about  the  duke;  and  once,  when  he  was 
dining  with  her,  complained  to  him  bitterly  of 
the  duke's  conduct  in  not  paying  her  allowance 
regularly.  She  was  in  financial  straits  at  the 
time;  for,  though  she  was  allowed  four  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  livres  a  year,  yet  three  hun 
dred  and  fifty  thousand  were  appropriated  for 


210  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

the  house-servants,  table,  etc.,  —  an  item  where 
in  her  American  friend,  albeit  not  over-frugal, 
thought  a  very  little  economy  would  result  in 
a  great  saving. 

His  description  of  one  of  the  days  he  spent 
at  Raincy  with  the  duchess  and  her  friends, 
gives  us  not  only  a  glimpse  of  the  life  of  the 
great  ladies  and  fine  gentlemen  of  the  day,  but 
also  a  clear  insight  into  the  reasons  why  these 
same  highly  polished  ladies  and  gentlemen  had 
utterly  lost  their  hold  over  the  people  whose 
God-given  rulers  they  deemed  themselves  to  be. 

Dejeuner  d  la  fourchctte  was  not  served  till 
noon, — Morris  congratulating  himself  that  he 
had  taken  a  light  breakfast  earlier.  "  After 
breakfast  we  go  to  mass  in  the  chapel.  In  the 
tribune  above  we  have  a  bishop,  an  abbe",  the 
duchess,  her  maids  and  some  of  their  friends. 
Madame  de  Chastellux  is  below  on  her  knees. 
We  are  amused  above  by  a  number  of  little 
tricks  played  off  by  Monsieur  de  Segur  and 
Monsieur  de  Cabieres  with  a  candle,  which  is 
put  into  the  pockets  of  different  gentlemen,  the 
bishop  among  the  rest,  and  lighted,  while  they 
are  otherwise  engaged,  (for  there  is  a  fire  in 
the  tribune,)  to  the  great  merriment  of  the 
spectators.  Immoderate  laughter  is  the  conse 
quence.  The  duchess  preserves  as  much  grav 
ity  as  she  can.  This  scene  must  be  very  edify- 


LIFE  IN  PARIS.  211 

ing  to  the  domestics  who  are  opposite  to  us, 
and  the  villagers  who  worship  below."  The 
afternoon's  amusements  were  not  to  his  taste. 
They  all  walked,  which  he  found  very  hot ; 
then  they  got  into  bateaux,  and  the  gentlemen 
rowed  the  ladies,  which  was  still  hotter ;  and 
then  there  came  more  walking,  so  he  was  glad 
to  get  back  to  the  chateau.  The  formal  dinner 
was  served  after  five ;  the  conversation  thereat 
varied  between  the  vicious  and  the  frivolous. 
There  was  much  bantering,  well-bred  in  man 
ner  and  excessivety  under-bred  in  matter,  be 
tween  the  different  guests  of  both  sexes,  about 
the  dubious  episodes  in  their  past  careers,  and 
the  numerous  shady  spots  in  their  respective 
characters.  Epigrams  and  "  epitaphs  "  were 
bandied  about  freely,  some  in  verse,  some  not ; 
probably  veiy  amusing  then,  but  their  lustre 
sadly  tarnished  in  the  eyes  of  those  who  read 
them  now.  While  they  were  dining,  "a  num 
ber  of  persons  surround  the  windows,  doubtless 
from  a  high  idea  of  the  company,  to  whom  they 
are  obliged  to  look  up  at  an  awful  distance. 
Oh,  did  they  but  know  how  trivial  the  conver 
sation,  how  very  trivial  the  characters,  their 
respect  would  soon  be  changed  to  an  emotion 
entirely  different !  " 

This   was   but  a  month   before   the    Bastile 
fell ;  and  yet,  on  the  threshold  of  their  hideous 


212  GOUVERNEUR   MORRIS. 

doom,  the  people  who  had  most  at  stake  were 
incapable  not  only  of  intelligent  action  to  ward 
off  their  fate,  but  even  of  serious  thought  as  to 
what  their  fate  would  be.  The  men  —  the 
nobles,  the  clerical  dignitaries,  and  the  princes 
of  the  blood  —  chose  the  church  as  a  place 
wherein  to  cut  antics  that  would  have  better 
befitted  a  pack  of  monkeys ;  while  the  women, 
their  wives  and  mistresses,  exchanged  with 
them  impure  jests  at  their  own  expense,  rel- 
ished  because  of  the  truth  on  which  they  rested. 
Brutes  might  still  have  held  sway  at  least  for 
a  time  ;  but  these  were  merely  vicious  triflers. 
They  did  not  believe  in  their  religion  ;  they 
did  not  believe  in  themselves  ;  they  did  not  be 
lieve  in  anything.  They  had  no  earnestness, 
no  seriousness;  their  sensibilities  and  enthusi 
asms  were  alike  affectations.  There  was  still 
plenty  of  fire  and  purpose  and  furious  energy 
in  the  hearts  of  the  French  people  ;  but  these 
and  all  the  other  virile  virtues  lay  not  among 
the  noblesse,  but  among  the  ranks  of  the  com 
mon  herd  beneath  them,  down-trodden,  bloody 
in  their  wayward  ferocity,  but  still  capable  of 
fierce,  heroic  devotion  to  an  ideal  in  which 
they  believed,  and  for  which  they  would  spill 
the  blood  of  others,  or  pour  out  their  own,  with 
the  proud  waste  of  utter  recklessness. 

Many  of  Morris's  accounts  of  the  literary  life 


LIFE  IN  PARIS.  213 

of  the  salon  read  as  if  they  were  explanatory 
notes  to  "•  Les  Precieuses  Ridicules."  There 
was  a  certain  pretentiousness  about  it  that  made 
it  a  bit  of  a  sham  at  the  best ;  and  the  feebler 
variety  of  salon,  built  on  such  a  foundation, 
thus  became  that  most  despicable  of  things,  an 
imitation  of  a  pretense.  At  one  of  the  dinners 
which  Morris  describes,  the  company  was  of  a 
kind  that  would  have  done  no  discredit  to  an 
entertainment  of  the  great  social  and  literary 
light  of  Eatanswill.  "  Set  off  in  great  haste  to 
dine  with  the  Comtesse  de  R.,  on  an  invitation 
of  a  week's  standing.  Arrive  at  about  a  quar 
ter  past  three,  and  find  in  the  drawing-room 
some  dirty  linen  and  no  fire.  While  a  wait 
ing-woman  takes  away  one,  a  valet  lights  up 
the  other.  Three  small  sticks  in  a  deep  bed  of 
ashes  give  no  great  expectation  of  heat.  By 
the  smoke,  however,  all  doubts  are  removed 
respecting  the  existence  of  fire.  To  expel  the 
smoke,  a  window  is  opened,  and,  the  day  being 
cold,  I  have  the  benefit  of  as  fresh  air  as  can 
reasonably  be  expected  in  so  large  a  city. 

"  Towards  four  o'clock  the  guests  begin  to 
assemble,  and  I  begin  to  expect  that,  as  madame 
is  a  poetess,  I  shall  have  the  honor  to  dine  with 
that  exalted  part  of  the  species  who  devote 
themselves  to  the  muses.  In  effect,  the  gentle 
men  begin  to  compliment  their  respective  works; 


214  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

and,  as  regular  hours  cannot  be  expected  in  a 
house  where  the  mistress  is  occupied  more  with 
the  intellectual  than  the  material  world,  I  have 
a  delightful  prospect  of  a  continuance  of  the 
scene.  Towards  five,  madame  steps  in  to  an 
nounce  dinner,  and  the  hungry  poets  advance 
to  the  charge.  As  they  bring  good  appetites, 
they  have  certainly  reason  to  praise  the  feast. 
And  I  console  myself  with  the  persuasion  that 
for  this  day  at  least  I  shall  escape  an  indigestion. 
A  very  narrow  escape,  too,  for  some  rancid  but 
ter,  of  which  the  cook  had  been  liberal,  puts  me 
in  bodily  fear.  If  the  repast  is  not  abundant, 
we  have  at  least  the  consolation  that  there  is 
no  lack  of  conversation.  Not  being  perfectly 
master  of  the  language,  most  of  the  jests  es 
caped  me.  As  for  the  rest  of  the  company, 
each  being  employed  either  in  saying  a  good 
thing,  or  else  in  studying  one  to  say,  it  is  no 
wonder  if  he  cannot  find  time  to  applaud  that 
of  his  neighbors.  They  all  agree  that  we  live 
in  an  age  alike  deficient  in  justice  and  in  taste. 
Each  finds  in  the  fate  of  his  own  works  numer 
ous  instances  to  justify  this  censure.  They  tell 
me,  to  my  great  surprise,  that  the  public  no\v 
condemn  theatrical  compositions  before  they 
have  heard  the  first  recital.  And,  to  remove 
my  doubts,  the  comtesse  is  so  kind  as  to  assure 
me  that  this  rash  decision  has  been  made  on 


LIFE  IN  PARIS.  215 

one  of  her  own  pieces.  In  pitying  modern  de 
generacy,  we  rise  from  the  table. 

"I  take  my  leave  immediately  after  the  cof 
fee,  which  by  no  means  dishonors  the  prece 
dent  repast ;  and  madame  informs  rne  that  on 
Tuesdays  and  Thursdays  she  is  always  at  home, 
and  will  always  be  glad  to  see  me.  While  I 
stammer  out  some  return  to  the  compliment, 
my  heart,  convinced  of  my  unworthiness  to  par 
take  of  such  attic  entertainments,  makes  me 
promise  never  again  to  occupy  the  place  from 
which  perhaps  I  had  excluded  a  worthier  per 
sonage." 

Among  Morris's  other  qualities,  he  was  the 
first  to  develop  that  peculiarly  American  vein 
of  humor  which  is  especially  fond  of  gravely 
pretending  to  believe  without  reserve  some  pre 
posterously  untrue  assertion,  —  as  throughout 
the  above  quotation. 

Though  the  society  in  which  he  was  thrown 
interested  him,  he  always  regarded  it  with  half- 
sarcastic  amusement,  and  at  times  it  bored  him 
greatly.  Meditating  on  the  conversation  in 
"  this  upper  region  of  wits  and  graces,"  he 
concludes  that  "  the  sententious  style "  is  the 
one  best  fitted  for  it,  and  that  in  it  "  observa 
tions  with  more  of  justice  than  splendor  can 
not  amuse,"  and  sums  up  by  saying  that  "  he 
could  not  please,  because  he  was  not  sufficiently 


216  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

His  comments  upon  the  various  distinguished 
men  he  met  are  always  interesting,  on  account 
of  the  quick,  accurate  judgment  of  character 
which  they  show.  It  was  this  insight  into  the 
feelings  and  ideas  alike  of  the  leaders  and  of 
their  followers  which  made  his  political  predic 
tions  often  so  accurate.  His  judgment  of  many 
of  his  contemporaries  comes  marvelously  near 
the  cooler  estimate  of  history. 

He  was  originally  prejudiced  in  favor  of  the 
king,  poor  Louis  XVI.,  and,  believing  him  "  to 
be  an  honest  and  good  man,  he  sincerely  wished 
him  well,"  but  he  very  soon  began  to  despise 
him  for  his  weakness.  This  quality  was  the 
exact  one  that  under  existing  circumstances  was 
absolutely  fatal ;  and  Morris  mentions  it  again 
and  again,  pronouncing  the  king  "  a  well-mean 
ing  man,  but  extremely  weak,  without  genius 
or  education  to  show  the  way  towards  that 
good  which  he  desires,"  and  "  a  prince  so  weak 
that  he  can  influence  very  little  either  by  his 
presence  or  absence."  Finally,  in  a  letter  to 
Washington,  he  gives  a  biting  sketch  of  the 
unfortunate  monarch.  "  If  the  reigning  prince 
were  not  the  small-beer  character  that  he  is, 
there  can  be  but  little  doubt  that,  watching 
events  and  making  a  tolerable  use  of  them,  he 
would  regain  his  authority  ;  but  what  will  you 
Lave  from  a  creature  who,  situated  as  he  is, 


LIFE  IN  PARIS.  217 

eats  and  drinks,  sleeps  well  and  laughs,  and  is 
as  merry  a  grig  as  lives  ?     The  idea  that  they 
will  give  him  some  money,  which  he  can  econ 
omize,  and  that  he  will  have  no  trouble  in  gov 
erning,  contents  him  entirely.     Poor  man  !    He 
little  thinks  how  unstable  is  his  situation.     He  > 
is  beloved,  but  it  is  not  with  the  sort  of  lovej 
which   a   monarch   should   inspire.     It  is  that  I 
kind  of  good-natured  pity  which  one  feels  for  a  \ 
led  captive.     There  is  besides  no  possibility  of 
serving  him,  for  at  the  slightest  show  of  opposi 
tion  he  gives  up  everything  and  every  person." 
Morris  had  too  robust  a  mind  to  feel  the  least 
regard  for  mere  amiability  and  good   intentions 
when  unaccompanied  by  any  of  the  ruder,  man 
lier  virtues. 

The  Count  d'Artois  had  "  neither  sense  to 
counsel  himself,  nor  to  choose  counsellors  for 
himself,  much  less  to  counsel  others."  This 
gentleman,  afterwards  Charles  X.,  stands  as 
perhaps  the  most  shining  example  of  the  mon 
umental  ineptitude  of  his  royal  house.  His 
fellow  Bourbon,  the  amiable  Bomba  of  Naples, 
is  his  only  equal  for  dull  silliness,  crass  im 
morality,  and  the  lack  of  every  manly  or  kingly 
virtue.  Democracy  has  much  to  answer  for, 
but  after  all  it  would  be  hard  to  find,  even 
among  the  aldermen  of  New  York  and  Chi 
cago,  men  whose  moral  and  mental  shortcom- 


218  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

ings  would  put  them  lower  than  this  royal 
couple.  To  our  shame  be  it  said,  our  system 
of  popular  government  once  let  our  greatest 
city  fall  under  the  control  of  Tweed ;  but  it 
would  be  rank  injustice  to  that  clever  rogue  to 
compare  him  with  the  two  vicious  dullards 
whom  the  opposite  system  permitted  to  tyran 
nize  at  Paris  and  Naples.  Moreover,  in  the 
end,  we  of  the  democracy  not  only  overthrew 
the  evil-doer  who  oppressed  us,  but  also  put 
him  in  prison ;  and  in  the  long  run  we  have 
usually  meted  out  the  same  justice  to  our  lesser 
criminals.  Government  by  manhood  suffrage 
shows  at  its  worst  in  large  cities ;  and  yet  even 
in  these  experience  certainly  does  not  show 
that  a  despotism  works  a  whit  better,  or  as 
well. 

Morris  described  the  Count  de  Montmorin 
pithily,  saying :  "  He  has  more  understanding 
than  people  in  general  imagine,  and  he  means 
well,  very  well,  but  he  means  it  feebly." 

When  Morris  came  to  France,  Necker  was  the 
most  prominent  man  in  the  kingdom.  He  was 
a  hard-working,  well-meaning,  conceited  person, 
not  in  the  least  fitted  for  public  affairs,  a  banker 
but  not  a  financier,  and  affords  a  beautiful  illus 
tration  of  the  utter  futility  of  the  popular  belief 
that  a  good  business  man  will  necessarily  be  a 
good  statesman.  Accident  had  made  him  the 


LIFE  IN  PARIS.  219 

most  conspicuous  figure  of  the  government,  ad 
mired  and  hated,  but  not  looked  down  upon ; 
yet  Morris  saw  through  him  at  a  glance.  After 
their  first  meeting,  he  writes  down  in  his  diary: 
"  He  has  the  look  and  manner  of  the  counting- 
house,  and,  being  dressed  in  embroidered  velvet, 
he  contrasts  strongly  with  his  habiliments. 
His  bow,  his  address,  say,  'I  am  the  man.'  .  .  . 
If  he  is  really  a  very  great  man,  I  am  deceived; 
and  yet  this  is  a  rash  judgment.  If  he  is  not  a 
laborious  man,  I  am  also  deceived."  He  soon 
saw  that  both  the  blame  and  the  praise  bestowed 
on  him  were  out  of  all  proportion  to  his  conse 
quence,  and  he  wrote  :  "  In  their  anguish  [the 
nobles]  curse  Necker,  who  is  in  fact  less  the 
cause  than  the  instrument  of  their  sufferings. 
His  popularity  depends  now  more  on  the  oppo 
sition  he  meets  with  from  one  party  than  any 
serious  regard  of  the  other.  It  is  the  attempt 
to  throw  him  down  which  saves  him  from  fall 
ing  ;  ...  as  it  is,  he  must  soon  fall."  To 
Washington  he  gave  a  fuller  analysis  of  his 
character.  "As  to  M.  Necker,  he  is  one  of 
those  people  who  has  obtained  a  much  greater 
reputation  than  he  has  any  right  to.  ...  In 
his  public  administration  he  has  always  been 
honest  and  disinterested  ;  which  proves  well,  I 
think,  for  his  former  private  conduct,  or  else  it 
proves  that  he  has  more  vanity  than  cupidity. 


220  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  an  unspotted  integrity  as 
minister,  and  serving  at  his  own  expense  in  an 
office  which  others  seek  for  the  purpose  of  en 
riching  themselves,  have  acquired  for  him  very 
deservedly  much  confidence.  Add  to  this  that 
his  writings  on  finance  teem  with  that  sort  of 
sensibility  which  makes  the  fortune  of  modern 
romances,  and  which  is  exactly  suited  to  this 
lively  nation,  who  love  to  read  but  hate  to  think. 
Hence  his  reputation.  He  .  .  .  [has  not]  the 
talents  of  a  great  minister.  His  education  as  a 
banker  has  taught  him  to  make  tight  bargains, 
and  put  him  upon  his  guard  against  projects. 
But  though  he  understands  man  as  a  covetous 
creature,  he  does  not  understand  mankind,  —  a 
defect  which  is  remediless.  He  is  utterly  igno 
rant  of  politics,  by  which  I  mean  politics  in  the 
great  sense,  or  that  sublime  science  which  em 
braces  for  its  object  the  happiness  of  mankind. 
Consequently  he  neither  knows  what  constitu 
tion  to  form,  nor  how  to  obtain  the  consent  of 
others  to  such  as  he  wishes.  From  the  moment 
of  convening  the  states-general,  he  has  been 
afloat  upon  the  wide  ocean  of  incidents.  But 
what  is  most  extraordinary  is  that  M.  Necker 
is  a  very  poor  financier.  This  I  know  will 
sound  like  heresy  in  the  ears  of  most  people, 
but  it  is  true.  The  plans  he  has  proposed  are 
feeble  and  inept." 


LIFE  IN  PARIS.  221 

A  far  more  famous  man,  Talleyrand,  then 
Bishop  of  Antun,  he  also  gauged  correctly  from 
the  start,  writing  down  that  he  appeared  to  be 
"  a  sly,  cool,  cunning,  ambitious,  and  malicious 
man.  I  know  not  why  conclusions  so  disadvan 
tageous  to  him  are  formed  in  my  mind,  but  so 
it  is,  and  I  cannot  help  it."  He  was  afterwards 
obliged  to  work  much  in  common  with  Talley 
rand,  for  botli  took  substantially  the  same  view 
of  public  affairs  in  that  crisis,  and  were  working 
for  a  common  end.  Speaking  of  his  new  ally's 
plan  respecting  church  property,  he  says :  "  He 
is  bigoted  to  it,  and  the  thing  is  well  enough ; 
but  the  mode  is  not  so  well.  He  is  attached  to 
this  as  an  author,  which  is  not  a  good  sign  for 
a  man  of  business."  And  again  he  criticises 
Talleyrand's  management  of  certain  schemes 
for  the  finances,  as  showing  a  willingness  "  to 
sacrifice  great  objects  for  the  sake  of  small 
ones  ...  an  inverse  ratio  of  moral  proportion." 

Morris  was  fond  of  Lafayette,  and  appre 
ciated  highly  his  courage  and  keen  sense  of 
honor  ;  but  he  did  not  think  much  of  his  abil 
ity,  and  became  at  times  very  impatient  with 
his  vanity  and  his  impractical  theories.  Be 
sides,  he  deemed  him  a  man  who  was  carried 
away  by  the  current,  and  could  neither  stem 
nor  guide  it.  "  I  have  known  my  friend  La 
fayette  now  for  many  years,  and  can  estimate 


222  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

at  the  just  value  both  his  words  and  actions. 
He  means  ill  to  no  one,  but  he  is  very  much 
below  the  business  he  has  undertaken  ;  and  if 

}  the  sea  runs  high,  he  will  be  unable  to  hold  the 
helm."  And  again,  in  writing  to  Washington  : 
kt  Unluckily  he  has  given  in  to  measures  .  .  . 
which  he  does  not  heartily  approve,  and  he 
heartily  approves  many  things  which  expe 
rience  will  demonstrate  to  be  dangerous." 
The  misshapen  but  mighty  genius  of  Mira- 

\beau  he  found  more  difficulty  in  estimating; 
he  probably  never  rated  it  quite  high  enough. 
He  naturally  scorned  a  man  of  such  degraded 
debauchery,  who,  having  been  one  of  the  great 
inciters  to  revolution,  had  now  become  a  subsi 
dized  ally  of  the  court.  He  considered  him 
"one  of  the  most  unprincipled  scoundrels  that 
ever  lived,"  although  of  "superior  talents,"  and 
"so  profligate  that  he  would  disgrace  any  admin 
istration,  "  besides  having  so  little  principle  as 
to  make  it  unsafe  to  trust  him.  After  his  death 
he  thus  sums  him  up :  "  Vices  both  degrad 
ing  and  detestable  marked  this  extraordinary 
being.  Completely  prostitute,  he  sacrificed 
everything  to  the  whim  of  the  moment ;  —  cupi- 
dus  alieni  prodigus  sui  ;  venal,  shameless  ;  and 
yet  greatly  virtuous  when  pushed  by  a  prevail 
ing  impulse,  but  never  truly  virtuous,  because 
never  under  the  steady  control  of  reason,  nor 


LIFE  IN  PARIS.  223 

the  firm  authority  of  principle.  I  have  seen 
this  man,  in  the  short  space  of  two  years,  hiosed, 
honored,  hated,  mourned.  Enthusiasm  has  just 
now  presented  him  gigantic.  Time  and  reflec 
tion  will  sink  this  stature."  Even  granting  this 
to  be  wholly  true,  as  it  undoubtedly  is  in  the 
main,  it  was  nevertheless  the  fact  that  in  Mira- 
beau  alone  lay  the  least  hope  of  salvation  for 
the  French  nation ;  and  Morris  erred  in  strenu 
ously  opposing  Lafayette's  going  into  a  ministry 
with  him.  Indeed,  he  seems  in  this  case  to  have 
been  blinded  by  prejudice,  and  certainly  actei 
very  inconsistently;  for  his  advice,  and  the  rea 
sons  he  gave  for  it,  were  completely  at  variance 
with  the  rules  he  himself  laid  down  to  Lafay 
ette,  with  even  more  cynicism  than  common 
sense,  when  the  latter  once  made  some  objec 
tions  to  certain  proposed  coadjutors  of  his  :  "  I 
state  to  him  .  .  .  that,  as  to  the  objections  he 
has  made  on  the  score  of  morals  in  some,  he 
must  consider  that  men  do  not  go  into  an  ad 
ministration  as  the  direct  road  to  heaven  ; 
that  they  are  prompted  by  ambition  or  ava 
rice,  and  therefore  that  the  only  way  to  secure 
the  most  virtuous  is  by  making  it  their  interest 
to  act  rightly." 

Morris  thus  despised  the  king,  and  distrusted 
the  chief  political  leaders ;  and,  as  he  wrote 
Washington,  he  was  soon  convinced  that  there 


224  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

was  an  immense  amount  of  corruption  in  the 
upper  circles.  The  people  at  large  he  disliked 
even  more  than  he  did  their  advisers,  and  he 
had  good  grounds,  too,  as  the  following  extract 
from  his  journal  shows:  "July  22d.  After  din 
ner,  walk  a  little  under  the  arcade  of  the  Palais 
Royal,  waiting  for  my  carriage.  In  this  period 
the  head  and  body  of  M.  de  Toulon  are  intro 
duced  in  triumph,  the  head  on  a  pike,  the  body 
dragged  naked  on  the  earth.  Afterwards  this 
horrible  exhibition  is  carried  through  the  differ 
ent  streets.  His  crime  is,  to  have  accepted  a 
place  in  the  ministry.  This  mutilated  form  of 
an  old  man  of  seventy-five  is  shown  to  his  son- 
in-law,  Berthier,  the  intendant  of  Paris ;  and 
afterwards  he  also  is  put  to  death  and  cut  to 
pieces,  the  populace  carrying  about  the  mangled 
fragments  with  a  savage  joy.  Gracious  God, 
what  a  people  !  "" 

He  describes  at  length,  and  most  interest 
ingly,  the  famous  opening  of  the  states-general, 
"  the  beginning  of  the  Revolution."  He  eyed 
this  body  even  at  the  beginning  with  great  dis 
trust  ;  and  he  never  thought  that  any  of  the 
delegates  showed  especial  capacity  for  grap 
pling  with  the  terrible  dangers  and  difficulties 
by  which  they  were  encompassed.  He  com 
ments  on  the  extreme  enthusiasm  with  which 
the  king  was  greeted,  and  sympathizes  strongly 


LIFE  IN  PARIS.  225 

with  Marie  Antoinette,  who  was  treated  with 
studied  and  insulting  coldness.  "  She  was  ex 
ceedingly  hurt.  I  cannot  help  feeling  the  moi 
tification  which  the  poor  queen  meets  with,  for 
I  see  only  the  woman  ;  and  it  seems  unmanly 
to  treat  a  woman  with  tin  kindness,  .  .  .  Not 
one  voice  is  heard  to  wish  her  well.  I  would 
certainly  raise  mine  if  I  were  a  Frenchman ; 
but  I  have  no  right  to  express  a  sentiment,  and 
in  vain  solicit  those  who  are  near  me  to  do  it." 
...  At  last  "the  queen  rises,  and,  to  my  great 
satisfaction,  she  hears,  for  the  first  time  in 
several  months,  the  sound  of  lVive  la  reine  !' 
She  makes  a  low  courtesy,  and  this  produces  a 
louder  acclamation,  and  that  a  lower  courtesy." 

The  sympathy  was  for  the  woman,  not  the 
queen,  the  narrow-minded,  absolute  sovereign, 
the  intriguer  against  popular  government,  whose 
policy  was  as  heavily  fraught  with  bale  for  the 
nation  as  was  that  of  Robespierre  himself.  The 
king  was  more  than  competent  to  act  as  his  own 
evil  genius  ;  had  he  not  been,  Marie  Antoinette 
would  have  amply  filled  the  place. 

He  characterized  the  carrying  of  "  that  dia 
bolical  castle,"  the  Bastile,  as  u  among  the  most 
extraordinary  things  I  have  met  with."  The 
day  it  took  place  he  wrote  in  his  journal,  with 
an  irony  very  modern  in  its  flavor:  u  Yesterday 
it  was  the  fashion  at  Versailles  not  to  believe 


226  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

that  there  were  any  disturbances  at  Paris.  I 
presume  that  this  day's  transactions  will  induce 
a  conviction  that  all  is  not  perfectly  quiet." 

He  used  the  Bastile  as  a  text  when,  shortly 
afterwards,  he  read  a  brief  lesson  to  a  certain 
eminent  painter.  The  latter  belonged  to  that 
class  of  artists  with  pen  or  pencil  (only  too 
plentiful  in  America  at  the  present  day)  who 
always  insist  on  devoting  their  energies  to  de 
picting  subjects  worn  threadbare  by  thousands 
of  predecessors,  instead  of  working  in  the  new, 
broad  fields,  filled  with  picturesque  material, 
opened  to  them  by  their  own  country  and  its 
history.  "  The  painter  shows  us  a  piece  he  is 
now  about  for  the  king,  taken  from  the  ^Eneid  : 
Venus  restraining  the  arm  which  is  raised  in 
the  temple  of  the  Vestals  to  shed  the  blood  of 
Helen.  I  tell  him  he  had  better  paint  the 
storm  of  the  Bastile." 


CHAPTER  IX. 

MISSION  TO   ENGLAND:    RETURN  TO  PARIS. 

IN  March,  1790,  Morris  went  to  London,  in 
obedience  to  a  letter  received  from  Washington 
appointing  him  private  agent  to  the  British 
government,  and  enclosing  him  the  proper  cre 
dentials. 

Certain  of  the  conditions  of  the  treaty  of 
peace  between  Great  Britain  and  the  United 
States,  although  entered  into  seven  years  before, 
were  still  unfulfilled.  It  had  been  stipulated 
that  the  British  should  give  up  the  fortified 
frontier  posts  within  our  territory,  and  should 
pay  for  the  negroes  they  had  taken  away  from 
the  Southern  States  during  the  war.  They  had 
done  neither,  and  Morris  was  charged  to  find 
out  what  the  intentions  of  the  government  were 
in  the  matter.  He  was  also  to  find  out  whether 
there  was  a  disposition  to  enter  into  a  commer 
cial  treaty  with  the  United  States  ;  and  finally, 
he  was  to  sound  them  as  to  their  sending  a  min 
ister  to  America. 

On  our  part  we  had  also  failed  to  fulfil  a  por- 


228  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

\  tion  of  our  treaty  obligations,  not  having  com 
plied  with  the  article  which  provided  for  the 
payment  of  debts  due  before  the  war  to  British 
merchants.  Both  sides  had  been  to  blame ; 
each,  of  course,  blamed  only  the  other.  But 
now,  when  we  were  ready  to  perform  our  part, 
the  British  refused  to  perform  theirs. 

As  a  consequence,  Morris,  although  he  spent 

i  most  of  the  year  in  London,  failed  to  accomplish 
anything.  The  feeling  in  England  was  hostile 
to  America  ;  to  the  king,  in  particular,  the  very 
name  was  hateful.  The  English  were  still  sore 
over  their  defeat,  and  hated  us  because  we  had 
been  victors ;  and  yet  they  despised  us  also,  for 
they  thought  we  should  be  absolutely  power 
less  except  when  we  were  acting  merely  on  the 
defensive.  From  the  days  of  the  Revolution 
till  the  days  of  the  Civil  War,  the  ruling  classes 
of  England  were  bitterly  antagonistic  to  our 
nation  ;  they  always  saw  with  glee  any  check 
to  our  national  well-being ;  they  wished  us  ill, 
and  exulted  in  our  misfortunes,  while  they 
sneered  at  our  successes.  The  results  have 
been  lasting,  and  now  work  much  more  to  their 
hurt  than  to  ours.  The  past  conduct  of  Eng 
land  certainly  offers  much  excuse  for,  though 
it  cannot  in  the  least  justify,  the  unreasonable 
and  virulent  anti-English  feeling —  that  is,  the 
feeling  against  Englishmen  politically  and  na- 


MISSION   TO  ENGLAND.  229 

tionally,  not  socially  or  individually — which  is 
so  strong  in  many  parts  of  our  country  where 
the  native  American  blood  is  purest. 

The  English  ministry  in  1790  probably  had 
the  general  feeling  of  the  nation  behind  them 
in  their  determination  to  injure  us  as  much  as 
they  could ;  at  any  rate,  their  aim  seemed  to 
be,  as  far  as  lay  in  them,  to  embitter  our  al 
ready  existing  hostility  to  their  empire.  They  ' 
not  only  refused  to  grant  us  any  substantial 
justice,  but  they  were  inclined  to  inflict  on  us 
and  on  our  representatives  those  petty  insults 
which  rankle  longer  than  injuries. 

When  it  came  to  this  point,  however,  Mor 
ris  was  quite  able  to  hold  his  own.  He  had  a 
ready,  biting  tongue  ;  and,  excepting  Pitt  and 
Fox,  was  intellectually  superior  to  any  of  the 
public  men  whom  he  met.  In  social  position, 
even  as  they  understood  it,  he  was  their  equal ; 
they  could  hardly  look  down  on  the  brother  of 
a  British  major-general,  and  a  brother-in-law 
of  the  Duchess  of  Gordon.  He  was  a  man  of 
rather  fiery  courage,  and  any  attacks  upon  his 
country  were  not  likely  to  be  made  twice  in  his 
presence.  Besides,  he  never  found  the  English 
congenial  as  friends  or  companions ;  he  could 
not  sympathize,  or  indeed  get  along  well,  with 
them.  This  distaste  for  their  society  he  always 
retained,  and  though  he  afterwards  grew  to  re- 


230  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

spect  them,  and  to  be  their  warm  partisan  po 
litically,  he  was  at  this  time  much  more  friendly 
to  France,  and  was  even  helping  the  French 
ministers  concoct  a  scheme  of  warfare  against 
their  neighbor.  To  his  bright,  impatient  tem 
perament,  the  English  awkwardness  seemed  to 
be  an  insuperable  obstacle  to  bringing  people 
together  "as  in  other  countries."  He  satirized 
the  English  drawing-rooms,  "where  the  arrange 
ment  of  the  company  was  stiff  and  formal,  the 
ladies  all  ranged  in  battalia  on  one  side  of  the 
room  ;  "  and  remarked  "  that  the  French,  having 
no  liberty  in  their  government,  have  compensa 
ted  to  themselves  that  misfortune  by  bestowing 
a  great  deal  upon  society.  But  that,  I  fear,  in 
England,  is  all  confined  to  the  House  of  Com 
mons."  Years  afterwards  he  wrote  to  a  friend 
abroad  :  "Have  you  reflected  that  there  is  more 
of  real  society  in  one  week  at  [a  Continental 
watering-place]  than  in  a  London  year?  Recol 
lect  that  a  tedious  morning,  a  great  dinner,  a 
boozy  afternoon,  and  dull  evening  make  the 
sum  total  of  English  life.  It  is  admirable  for 
young  men  who  shoot,  hunt,  drink,  —  but  for 
us  !  How  are  we  to  dispose  of  ourselves  ?  No. 
Were  I  to  give  you  a  rendezvous  in  Europe,  it 
should  be  on  the  continent.  I  respect,  as  you 
know,  the  English  nation  highly,  and  love  many 
individuals  among  them,  but  I  do  not  love  their 


MISSION  TO  ENGLAND.  231 

manners."  Times  have  changed,  and  the  man 
ners  of  the  Islanders  with  them.  Exactly  as 
the  "  rude  Carinthian  boor  "  has  become  the 
most  polished  of  mortals,  so,  after  a  like  trans 
formation,  English  society  is  now  perhaps  the 
pleasantest  and  most  interesting  in  Europe. 
Were  Morris  alive  to-day,  he  would  probably 
respect  the  English  as  much  as  he  ever  did, 
and  like  them  a  good  deal  more  ;  and,  while  he 
might  well  have  his  preference  for  his  own 
country  confirmed,  yet,  if  he  had  to  go  abroad, 
it  is  hard  to  believe  that  he  would  now  pass  by 
London  in  favor  of  any  continental  capital  or 
watering-place. 

In  acknowledging  Washington's  letter  of  ap 
pointment,  Morris  wrote  that  he  did  not  expect 
1  much  difficulty,  save  from  the  king  himself, 
who  was  very  obstinate,  and  bore  a  personal 
dislike  to  his  former  subjects.  But  his  inter 
views  with  the  minister  of  foreign  affairs,  the 
Duke  of  Leeds,  soon  undeceived  him.  The 
duke  met  him  with  all  the  little  tricks  of  de 
lay,  and  evasion,  known  to  old-fashioned  diplo 
macy  ;  tricks  that  are  always  greatly  relished 
by  men  of  moderate  ability,  and  which  are  suc 
cessful  enough  where  the  game  is  not  very  im 
portant,  as  in  the  present  instance,  but  are 
nearly  useless  when  the  stakes  are  high  and  the 
adversary  determined.  The  worthy  nobleman 


232  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

was  profuse  in  expressions  of  general  good-will, 
and  vague  to  a  degree  in  bis  answers  to  every 
concrete  question  ;  affected  to  misunderstand 
what  was  asked  of  him,  and,  when  he  could  not 
do  this  "  slumbered  profoundly  "  for  weeks  be 
fore  making  his  reply.  Morris  wrote  that  "his 
explanatory  comments  were  more  unintelligible 
than  his  texts,"  and  was  delighted  when  he 
heard  that  he  might  be  replaced  by  Lord 
Hawksbury  ;  for  the  latter,  although  strongly 
an ti- American,  "  would  at  least  be  an  efficient 
minister,"  whereas  the  former  was  "  evidently 
afraid  of  committing  himself  by  saying  or  doing 
anything  positive."  He  soon  concluded  that 
Great  Britain  was  so  uncertain  as  to  liow  mat 
ters  were  going  in  Europe  that  she  wished  to 
keep  us  in  a  similar  state  of  suspense.  She  had 
recovered  with  marvelous  rapidity  from  the 
effects  of  the  great  war ;  she  was  felt  on  all 
sides  to  hold  a  position  of  commanding  power  ; 
this  she  knew  well,  and  so  felt  like  driving  a 
very  hard  bargain  with  any  nation,  especially 
with  a  weak  one  that  she  hated.  It  was  par 
ticularly  difficult  to  form  a  commercial  treaty. 
There  were  very  many  Englishmen  who  agreed 
with  a  Mr.  Irwin,  "  a  mighty  sour  sort  of  crea 
ture,"  who  assured  Morris  that  he  was  utterly 
opposed  to  all  American  trade  in  grain,  and 
that  he  wished  to  oblige  the  British  people,  by 


MISSION  TO  ENGLAND.  233 

the  force  of  starvation,  to  raise  enough  corn  for 
their  own  consumption.  Fox  told  Morris  that 
he  and  Burke  were  about  the  only  two  men  left 
who  believed  that  Americans  should  be  allowed 
to  trade  in  their  own  bottoms  to  the  British 
Islands ;  and  he  also  informed  him  that  Pitt 
was  not  hostile  to  America,  but  simply  indiffer 
ent,  being  absorbed  in  European  matters,  and 
allowing  his  colleagues  free  hands. 

Becoming  impatient  at  the  long -continued 
delay,  Morris  finally  wrote,  very  courteously 
but  very  firmly,  demanding  some  sort  of  answer, 
and  this  produced  a  momentary  activity,  and 
assurances  that  he  was  under  a  misapprehen 
sion  as  to  the  delay,  etc.  The  subject  of  the 
impressment  of  American  sailors  into  British 
men-of-war,  —  a  matter  of  chronic  complaint 
throughout  our  first  forty  years  of  national  life, 
—  now  came  up ;  and  he  remarked  to  the 
Duke  of  Leeds,  with  a  pithy  irony  that  should 
have  made  the  saying  famous  :  "  I  believe,  my 
lord,  that  this  is  the  only  instance  in  which  we 
are  not  treated  as  aliens."  He  proposed  a  plan 
which  would  have  at  least  partially  obviated 
the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  a  settlement  of 
the  matter,  but  the  duke  would  do  nothing. 
Neither  would  he  come  to  any  agreement  in 
reference  to  the  exchange  of  ministers  between 
the  two  countries. 


234  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

Then  came  an  interview  with  Pitt,  and  Mor 
ris,  seeing  how  matters  stood,  now  spoke  out 
perfectly  clearly.  In  answer  to  the  accusations 
about  our  failure  wholly  to  perform  certain  stip 
ulations  of  the  treaty,  after  reciting  the  coun 
ter  accusations  of  the  Americans,  he  brushed 
them  all  aside  with  the  remark :  "  But,  sir, 
what  I  have  said  tends  to  show  that  these  com 
plaints  and  inquiries  are  excellent  if  the  parties 
mean  to  keep  asunder  ;  if  they  wish  to  come  to 
gether,  all  such  matters  should  be  kept  out  of 
sight."  He  showed  that  the  House  of  Repre 
sentatives,  in  a  friendly  spirit,  had  recently  de 
cided  against  laying  extraordinary  restrictions 
on  British  vessels  in  our  ports.  "  Mr.  Pitt  said 
that,  instead  of  restrictions,  we  ought  to  give 
them  particular  privileges,  in  return  for  those 
we  enjoy  here.  I  assured  him  that  I  knew  of 
none  except  that  of  being  impressed,  a  privilege 
which  of  all  others  we  least  wished  to  partake 
of.  ...  Mr.  Pitt  said  seriously  that  they  had 
certainly  evinced  good-will  to  us  by  what  they 
Lad  done  respecting  our  commerce.  I  replied 
therefore,  with  like  seriousness,  that  their  regu 
lations  had  been  dictated  with  a  view  to  their 
own  interests ;  and  therefore,  as  we  felt  no  fa 
vor,  we  owed  no  obligation."  Morris  realized 
thoroughly  that  they  were  keeping  matters  in 
suspense  because  their  behavior  would  depend 


MISSION  TO  ENGLAND.  235 

upon  the  contingencies  of  war  or  peace  with  the 
neighboring  powers  ;  he  wished  to  show  that, 
if  they  acted  thus,  we  would  also  bide  our  time 
till  the  moment  came  to  strike  a  telling  blow  ; 
and  accordingly  he  ended  by  telling  Pitt,  wkh 
straightforward  directness,  a  truth  that  was 
also  a  threat :  "  We  do  not  think  it  worth 
while  to  go  to  war  with  you  for  the  [frontier] 
forts  ;  but  we  know  our  rights,  and  will  avail 
ourselves  of  them  when  time  and  circumstances 
may  suit." 

After  this  conversation  he  became  convinced 
that  we  should  wait  until  England  herself  felt 
the  necessity  of  a  treaty  before  trying  to  nego 
tiate  one.  He  wrote  Washington  "  that  those 
who,  pursuing  the  interests  of  Great  Britain, 
wish  to  be  on  the  best  terms  with  America,  are 
outnumbered  by  those  whose  sour  prejudice 
and  hot  resentment  render  them  averse  to  any 
intercourse  except  that  which  may  immediately 
subserve  a  selfish  policy.  These  men  do  not  yet 
know  America.  Perhaps  America  does  not 
yet  know  herself.  .  .  .  We  are  yet  in  but  the 
seeding-time  of  national  prosperity,  and  it  will 
be  well  not  to  mortgage  the  crop  before  it  is 
gathered.  .  .  .  England  will  not,  I  am  per 
suaded,  enter  into  a  treaty  with  us  unless  we 
give  for  it  more  than  it  is  worth  now,  and  in 
finitely  more  than  it  will  be  worth  hereafter. 
A  present  bargain  would  be  that  of  a  young 


236  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

heir  with  an  old  usurer.  .  .  .  But,  should  war 
break  out  [with  a  European  power],  the  anti- 
American  party  here  will  agree  to  any  terms  ; 
for  it  is  more  the  taste  of  the  medicine  which 
they  nauseate  than  the  quantity  of  the  dose." 

Accordingly  all  negotiations  were  broken  off. 
In  America  his  enemies  blamed  Morris  for  this 
failure.  They  asserted  that  his  haughty  man 
ners  and  proud  bearing  had  made  him  unpopu 
lar  with  the  ministers,  and  that  his  consorting 
with  members  of  the  opposition  had  still  further 
damaged  his  cause.  The  last  assertion  was 
wholly  untrue  ;  for  he  had  barely  more  than 
met  Fox  and  his  associates.  But  on  a  third 
point  there  was  genuine  reason  for  dissatisfac 
tion.  Morris  had  confided  his  purpose  to  the 
French  minister  at  London,  M.  de  la  Luzerne, 
doing  so  because  he  trusted  to  the  latter's  honor, 
and  did  not  wish  to  seem  to  take  any  steps  un 
known  to  our  ally  ;  and  he  was  in  all  probability 
also  influenced  by  his  constant  association  and 
intimacy  with  the  French  leaders.  Luzerne, 
however,  promptly  used  the  information  for  his 
own  purposes,  letting  the  English  ministers 
know  that  he  was  acquainted  with  Morris's  ob 
jects,  and  thus  increasing  the  weight  of  France 
by  making  it  appear  that  America  acted  only 
with  her  consent  and  advice.  The  affair  curi 
ously  illustrates  Jay's  wisdom  eight  years  be- 


RETURN  TO  PARIS.  237 

fore,  when  he  insisted  on  keeping  Luzerne's  su 
perior  at  that  time,  Vergennes,  in  the  dark  as 
to  our  course  during  the  peace  negotiations. 
However,  it  is  not  at  all  likely  that  Mr.  Pitt 
or  the  Duke  of  Leeds  were  influenced  in  their 
course  by  anything  Luzerne  said. 

Leaving  London,  Morris  made  a  rapid  trip 
through  the  Netherlands  and  up  the  Rhine. 
His  journals,  besides  the  usual  comments  on  the 
inns,  the  bad  roads,  poor  horses,  sulky  postil 
ions,  and  the  like,  are  filled  with  very  interest 
ing  observations  on  the  character  of  the  country 
through  which  he  passed,  its  soil  and  inhabit 
ants,  and  the  indications  they  afforded  of  the 
national  resources.  He  liked  to  associate  with 
people  of  every  kind,  and  he  was  intensely  fond 
of  natural  scenery  ;  but,  what  seems  rather 
surprising  in  a  man  of  his  culture,  he  appar 
ently  cared  very  little  for  the  great  cathedrals, 
the  picture  galleries,  and  the  works  of  art 
for  which  the  old  towns  he  visited  were  so 
famous. 

I  He  reached  Paris  at  the  end  of  November, 
but  was  almost  immediately  called  to  London 
again,  returning  in  January,  1791,  and  making 
three  or  four  similar  trips  in  the  course  of  the 
year.  His  own  business  affairs  took  up  a  great 
deal  of  his  time.  He  was  engaged  in  very 
many  different  operations,  out  of  which  he 


238  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

made  a  great  deal  of  money,  being  a  shrewd 
business  man  with  a  strong  dash  of  the  specu 
lator.  He  had  to  prosecute  a  suit  against  the 
farmers-general  of  France  for  a  large  quantity 
of  tobacco  shipped  them  by  contract ;  and  he 
gives  a  very  amusing  description  of  the  visits 
he  made  to  the  judges  before  whom  the  case 
was  to  be  tried.  Their  occupations  were  cer 
tainly  various,  being  those  of  a  farrier,  a  gold 
smith,  a  grocer,  a  currier,  a  woolen  draper,  and 
a  bookseller  respectively.  Asa  sample  of  his 
efforts,  take  the  following :  "  Return  home  and 
dine.  At  five  resume  my  visits  to  my  judges, 
and  first  wait  upon  the  honorable  M.  Gillet,  the 
grocer,  who  is  in  a  little  cuddy  adjoining  his 
shop,  at  cards.  He  assures  me  that  the  court 
are  impartial,  and  alike  uninfluenced  by  farmers, 
receivers,  and  grand  seigneurs  ;  that  they  are 
generally  of  the  same  opinion  ;  that  he  will  do 
everything  in  his  power;  and  the  like.  De 
Vautre  cot£,  perfect  confidence  in  the  ability 
and  integrity  of  the  court.  Wish  only  to  bring 
the  cause  to  such  a  point  as  that  I  may  have 
the  honor  to  present  a  memorial.  Am  vastly 
sorry  to  have  been  guilty  of  an  intrusion  upon 
the  amusements  of  his  leisure  hours.  Hope  he 
will  excuse  the  solicitude  of  a  stranger,  and  pa 
tronize  a  claim  of  such  evident  justice.  The 
whole  goes  off  very  well,  though  I  with  difjiculty 


RETURN  TO  PARIS.  239 

restrain  my  risible  faculties.  ...  A  disagreea 
ble  scene,  the  ridicule  of  which  is  so  strongly 
painted  to  my  own  eyes  that  I  cannot  forbear 
laughing." 

He  also  contracted  to  deliver  Necker  twenty 
thousand  barrels  of  flour  for  the  relief  of  Paris ; 
wherein,  by  the  way,  he  lost  heavily.  He  took 
part  in  sundry  shipping  operations.  Perhaps  the 
most  lucrative  business  in  which  he  was  engaged 
was  in  negotiating  the  sale  of  wild  lands  in 
America.  He  even  made  many  efforts  to  buy 
the  Virginian  and  Pennsylvania!!  domains  of 
the  Fairfaxes  and  the  Penns.  On  behalf  of  a 
syndicate,  he  endeavored  to  purchase  the  Amer 
ican  debts  to  France  and  Spain;  these  being 
purely  speculative  efforts,  as  it  was  supposed 
that  the  debts  could  be  obtained  at  quite  a  low 
figure,  while,  under  the  new  Constitution,  the 
United  States  would  certainly  soon  make  ar 
rangements  for  paying  them  off.  These  vari 
ous  operations  entailed  a  wonderful  amount  of 
downright  hard  work ;  yet  all  the  while  he  re 
mained  not  only  a  close  observer  of  French  poli 
tics,  but,  to  a  certain  extent,  even  an  actor  in 
them. 

He  called  upon  Lafayette  as  soon  as  he  was 
again  established  in  Paris,  after  his  mission  to 
London.  He  saw  that  affairs  had  advanced  to 
such  a- pitch  in  France  that  "  it  was  no  longer 


240  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

a  question  of  liberty,  but  simply  who  shall  be 
master."  He  had  no  patience  with  those  who 
wished  the  king  to  place  himself,  as  they  phrased 
it,  at  the  head  of  the  Revolution,  remarking  : 
"  The  trade  of  a  revolutionist  appears  to  me 
a  hard  one  for  a  prince."  What  with  the  folly 
of  one  side  and  the  madness  of  the  other,  things 
were  going  to  pieces  very  rapidly.  At  one  of 
his  old  haunts,  the  club,  the  "  sentiment  aristo- 
cratique  "  had  made  great  headway :  one  of  his 
friends,  De  Moustin,  now  in  favor  with  the  king 
and  queen,  was  "  as  usual  on  the  high  ropes  of 
royal  prerogative."  Lafayette,  however,  was 
still  wedded  to  his  theories,  and  did  not  appear 
over-glad  to  see  his  American  friend,  all  whose 
ideas  and  habits  of  thought  were  so  opposed  to 
his  own  ;  while  madam e  was  still  cooler  in  her 
reception.  Morris,  nothing  daunted,  talked  to 
his  friend  very  frankly  and  seriously.  He  told 
him  that  the  time  had  come  when  all  good  citi 
zens  would  be  obliged,  simply  from  lack  of 
choice,  to  cling  to  the  throne  ;  that  the  execu 
tive  must  be  strengthened,  and  good  and  able 
men  put  into  the  council.  He  pronounced  the 
"  thing  called  a  constitution  "  good  for  nothing, 
and  showed  that  the  National  Assembly  was 
rapidly  falling  into  contempt.  He  pointed  out, 
for  the  hundredth  time,  that  each  country  need 
ed  to  have  its  own  form  of  government;  that  an 


RETURN  TO  PARIS.  241 

American  constitution  would  not  do  for  France, 
for  the  latter  required  an  even  higher-toned 
system  than  that  of  England ;  and  that,  above 
all  things,  France  needed  stability.  He  gave 
the  reasons  for  his  advice  clearly  and  forcibly  ; 
but  poor  Lafayette  flinched  from  it,  and  could 
not  be  persuaded  to  take  any  effectual  step. 

It  is  impossible  to  read  Morris's  shrewd  com 
ments  on  the  events  of  the  day,  and  his  plans 
in  reference  to  them,  without  wondering  that 
France  herself  should  at  the  crisis  have  failed 
to  produce  any  statesmen  to  be  compared  with 
him  for  force,  insight,  and  readiness  to  do  what 
was  practically  best  under  the  circumstances  ; 
but  her  past  history  for  generations  had  been 
such  as  to  make  it  out  of  the  question  for  her 
to  bring  forth  such  men  as  the  founders  of  our 
own  government.  Warriors,  lawgivers,  and 
diplomats  she  had  in  abundance.  Statesmen 
who  would  be  both  hard  -  headed  and  true- 
hearted,  who  would  be  wise  and  yet  unselfish, 
who  would  enact  laws  for  a  free  people  that 
would  make  that  people  freer  still,  and  yet  hin 
der  them  from  doing  wrong  to  their  neighbors, 
—  statesmen  of  this  order  she  neither  had  nor 
could  have  had.  Indeed,  had  theie  been  such, 
it  may  well  be  doubted  if  they  could  have 
served  France.  With  a  people  who  made  up  in 
fickle  ferocity  what  they  lacked  in  self-restraint, 


242  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

and  a  king  too  timid  and  short-sighted  to  turn 
any  crisis  to  advantage,  the  French  statesmen, 
even  had  they  been  as  wise  as  they  were  foolish, 
would  hardly  have  been  able  to  arrest  or  alter 
the  march  of  events.  Morris  said  bitterly  that 
France  was  the  country  where  everything  was 
talked  of,  and  where  hardly  anything  was  un 
derstood. 

He  told  Lafayette  that  he  thought  the  only 
hope  of  the  kingdom  lay  in  a  foreign  war ;  it  is 
possible  that  the  idea  may  have  been  suggested 
to  him  by  Lafayette's  naive  remark  that  he  be 
lieved  his  troops  would  readily  follow  him  into 
action,  but  that  they  would  not  mount  guard 
when  it  rained.  Morris  not  only  constantly 
urged  the  French  ministers  to  make  war,  but 
actually  drew  up  a  plan  of  campaign  for  them. 
He  believed  it  would  turn  the  popular  ardor, 
now  constantly  inflamed  against  the  aristocrats, 
into  a  new  channel,  and  that  "  there  was  no 
word  perhaps  in  the  dictionary  which  would 
take  the  place  of  aristocrat  so  readily  as  An 
glais."  In  proof  of  the  wisdom  of  his  prop 
ositions  he  stated,  with  absolute  truthfulness: 
"If  Britain  had  declared  war  in  1774  against 
the  house  of  Bourbon,  the  now  United  States 
would  have  bled  freely  in  her  cause."  He  was 
disgusted  with  the  littleness  of  the  men  who, 
appalled  at  their  own  surroundings,  and  unable 


RETURN  TO 

to  make  shift  even  for  the  moment,  found  them 
selves  thrown  by  chance  to  the  helm,  and  face 
to  face  with  the  wildest  storm  that  had  ever 
shaken  a  civilized  government.  Speaking  of 
one  of  the  new  ministers,  he  remarked:  "They 
say  he  is  a  good  kind  of  man,  which  is  saying 
very  little  ;  "  and  again,  "  You  want  just  now 
great  men,  to  pursue  great  measures."  Another 
time,  in  advising  a  war,  —  a  war  of  men,  not  of 
monny,  —  and  speaking  of  the  efforts  made  by 
the  neighboring  powers  against  the  revolution 
ists  in  Flanders,  he  told  his  French  friends  that 
they  must  either  suffer  for  or  with  their  allies  ; 
and  that  the  latter  was  at  once  the  noblest  and 
the  safest  course. 

In  a  letter  to  Washington  he  drew  a  picture 
of  the  chaos  as  it  really  was,  and  at  the  same 
time,  with  wonderful  clear-sightedness,  showed 
the  great  good  which  the  change  was  eventually 
to  bring  to  the  mass  of  the  people.  Remember 
ing  how  bitter  Morris's  feelings  were  against 
the  revolutionists,  it  is  extraordinary  that  they 
did  not  blind  him  to  the  good  that  would  in 
the  long  run  result  from  their  movement.  Not 
another  statesman  would  have  been  able  to. set 
forth  so  clearly  and  temperately  the  benefits 
that  would  finally  come  from  the  convulsions  he 
saw  around  him,  although  he  rightly  believed 
that  these  benefits  would  be  even  greater  could 


244  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

the  hideous    excesses  of   the  revolutionists   be 
forthwith  stopped  and  punished. 

His  letter  runs  :  "  This  unhappy  country, 
bewildered  in  the  pursuit  of  metaphysical  whim 
sies,  presents  to  our  moral  view  a  mighty  ruin. 
.  .  .  The  sovereign,  humbled  to  the  level  of  a 
beggar  without  pity,  without  resources,  without 
authority,  without  a  friend.  The  Assembly,  at 
once  a  master  and  a  slave,  new  in  power,  wild 
in  theory,  raw  in  practice.  It  engrosses  all  func 
tions,  though  incapable  of  exercising  any,  and 
has  taken  from  this  fierce,  ferocious  people  every 
restraint  of  religion  and  of  respect."  Where 
this  would  all  end,  or  what  sum  of  misery 
would  be  necessary  to  change  the  popular  will 
and  awaken  the  popular  heart,  he  could  not  say. 
A  glorious  opportunity  had  been  lost,  and  for 
the  time  being  the  Revolution  had  failed.  Yet, 
he  went  on  to  say,  in  the  consequences  flowing 
from  it  he  was  confident  he  could  see  the  foun 
dation  of  future  prosperity.  For  among  these 
consequences  were,  —  1.  The  abolition  of  the  dif 
ferent  rights  and  privileges  which  had  formerly 
kept  the  various  provinces  asunder  ;  2.  The 
abolition  of  feudal  tyranny,  by  which  the  tenure 
of  real  property  would  be  simplified,  and  the 
rent  no  longer  be  dependent  upon  idle  vanity, 
capricious  taste,  or  sullen  pride  ;  3.  The  throw 
ing  into  the  circle  of  industry  those  vast  posses- 


RETURN  TO  PARIS.  245 

sions  formerly  held  by  the  clergy  in  mortmain, 
wealth  conferred  upon  them  as  wages  for  their 
idleness  ;  4.  The  destruction  of  the  system  of 
venal  jurisprudence  which  had  established  the 
pride  and  privileges  of  the  few  on  the  misery 
and  degradation  of  the  general  mass ;  5.  Above 
all,  the  establishment  of  the  principles  of  true 
liberty,  which  would  remain  as  solid  facts  after 
the  superstructure  of  metaphysical  froth  and 
vapor  should  have  been  blown  away.  Finally, 
"  from  the  chaos  of  opinion  and  the  conflict  of 
its  jarring  elements  a  new  order  will  at  length 
arise,  which,  though  in  some  degree  the  child  of 
chance,  may  not  be  less  productive  of  human 
happiness  than  the  forethought  provisions  of 
human  speculation."  Not  one  other  contem 
porary  statesman  could  have  begun  to  give  so 
just  jin  estimate  of  the  good  the  Revolution 
would  accomplish  ;  no  other  could  have  seen  so 
deeply  into  its  ultimate  results,  while  also 
keenly  conscious  of  the  dreadful  evil  through 
which  these  results  were  being  worked  out. 

The  social  life  of  Paris  still  went  on,  though 
with  ever  less  of  gayety,  as  the  gloom  gathered 
round  about.  Going  with  Madame  de  Chas- 
tellux  to  dine  with  the  Duchess  of  Orleans, 
Morris  was  told  by  her  royal  highness  that  she 
was  "  ruined,"  that  is,  that  her  income  was 
reduced  from  four  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 


246  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

to  two  hundred  thousand  livres  a  year,  so  that 
she  could  no  longer  give  him  good  dinners ;  but 
if  he  would  come  and  fast  with  her,  she  would 
be  glad  to  see  him.  The  poor  lady  was  yet  to 
learn  by  bitter  experience  that  real  ruin  was 
something  very  different  from  the  loss  of  half 
of  an  enormous  income. 

On  another  occasion  he  breakfasted  with  the 
duchess,  and  was  introduced  to  her  father,  with 
whom  he  agreed  to  dine.  After  breakfast  she 
went  out  walking  with  him  till  nearly  dinner 
time,  and  gave  him  the  full  history  of  her  breach 
with  her  husband,  Egalit^,  showing  the  letters 
that  had  passed  between  them,  complaining  of 
his  numerous  misdeeds,  and  assuring  Morris 
that  what  the  world  had  attributed  to  fondness 
for  her  worthless  spouse  was  merely  discretion; 
that  she  had  hoped  to  bring  him  to  a  decent 
and  orderly  behavior,  but  had  finally  made  up 
her  mind  that  lie  could  only  be  governed  by 
fear. 

Now  and  then  he  indulges  in  a  quiet  laugh 
at  the  absurd  pretensions  and  exaggerated  esti 
mates  of  each  other  still  affected  by  some  of 
the  frequenters  of  the  various  salons.  u  Dine 
with  Madame  de  Stael.  The  Abb6  Siey£s  is 
here,  and  descants  with  much  self-sufficiency 
on  government,  despising  all  that  has  been  said 
or  sung  on  that  subject  before  him ;  and  madame 


RETURN  TO  PARIS.  247 

says  that  his  writings  and  opinions  will  form 
in  politics  a  new  era,  like  those  of  Newton  in 
physics." 

After  dining  with  Marmontel,  he  notes  in  his 
Diary  that  his  host  "  thinks  soundly,"  —  rare 
praise  for  him  to  bestow  on  any  of  the  French 
statesmen  of  the  time.  He  records  a  ban  mot 
of  Talleyrand's.  When  the  Assembly  had  de 
clared  war  on  the  emperor  conditionally  upon 
the  Litter's  failing  to  beg  pardon  before  a  certain 
date,  the  little  bishop  remarked  that  "the  na 
tion  was  une  parvenue,  and  of  course  insolent." 
At  the  British  ambassador's  be  met  the  famous 
Colonel  Tarleton,  who  did  not  know  his  nation 
ality,  and  amused  him  greatly  by  descanting  at 
length  on  the  American  war. 

He  was  very  fond  of  the  theatre,  especially 
of  the  Come'die  Francaise,  where  Preville,  whom 
he  greatly  admired,  was  acting  in  Moliere's 
"Amphitryon."  Many  of  the  plays,  whose  plots 
presented  in  any  way  analogies  to  what  was  ac 
tually  happening  in  the  political  world,  raised 
great  excitement  among  the  spectators.  Going 
to  see  "  Brutus  "  acted,  he  records  that  the  noise 
and  altercations  were  tremendous,  but  that 
finally  the  democrats  in  the  parterre  got  the 
upper  hand  by  sheer  lusty  roaring,  which  they 
kept  up  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour  at  a  time,  and, 
at  the  conclusion  of  the  piece,  insisted  upon  the 


248  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

bust  of  Voltaire  being  crowned  and  placed  on 
the  stage.  Soon  afterwards  a  tragedy  called 
'"  Charles  Neuf,"  founded  on  the  massacre  of  St. 
Bartholomew,  was  put  on  the  stage,  to  help  the 
Assembly  in  their  crusade  against  the  clergy  ; 
he  deemed  it  a  very  extraordinary  piece  to  be 
represented  in  a  Catholic  country,  and  thought 
that  it  would  give  a  fatal  blow  to  the  Catholic 
religion. 

The  priesthood,  high  and  low,  he  disliked 
more  than  any  other  set  of  men  ;  all  his  com 
ments  on  them  show  his  contempt.  The  high 
prelates  lie  especially  objected  to.  The  Bishop 
of  Orleans  he  considered  to  be  M  luxurious  old 
gentleman,"of  the  kind  whose  sincerest  prayer 
is  for  the  fruit  of  good  living,  one  who  evidently 
thought  it  more  important  to  speak  than  to 
speak  the  truth"  The  leader  of  the  great  church 
dignitaries,  in  their  fight  for  their  rich  benefices, 
was  the  Abbe  Maury,  who,  Morris  writes,  "  is 
a  man  who  looks  like  a  downright  ecclesiastical 
scoundrel."  He  met  him  in  Madame  de  Na- 
daillac's  salon,  where  were  "a  party  of  fierce 
aristocrats.  They  have  the  word  '  valet  '  writ 
ten  on  their  foreheads  in  large  characters. 
Maury  is  formed  to  govern  such  men,  and  they 
are  formed  to  obey  him  or  any  one  else.  But 
Maury  seems  to  have  too  much  vanity  for  a 
great  man."  To  tell  the  bare  truth  is  some- 


RETURN    TO  PARIS.  249 

times  to  make  the  most  venomous  comment 
possible,  and  this  he  evidently  felt  when  he 
wrote  of  his  meeting  with  the  Cardinal  de  Ro 
han  :  "  We  talk  among  other  things  about  re 
ligion,  for  the  cardinal  is  very  devout.  He  was 
once  the  lover  of  Madame  de  Flahaut's  sister." 

But  as  the  tremendous  changes  went  on 
about  him,  Morris  had  continually  less  and  less 
time  to  spend  in  mere  social  pleasures  ;  graver 
and  weightier  matters  called  for  his  attention, 
and  his  Diary  deals  with  the  shifts  and  strata 
gems  of  the  French  politicians,  and  pays  little 
heed  to  the  sayings  and  manners  of  nobles, 
bishops,  and  ladies  of  rank. 

The  talented,  self-confident,  fearless  Amer 
ican,  admittedly  out  of  sympathy  with  what  he 
called  "  this  abominable  populace,"  was  now 
well  known  ;  and  in  their  terrible  tangle  of 
dangers  and  perplexities,  court  and  ministry 
alike  turned  to  him  for  help.  Perhaps  there 
has  hardly  been  another  instance  where,  in  such 
a  crisis,  the  rulers  have  clutched  in  their  despair 
at  the  advice  of  a  mere  private  stranger  so 
journing  in  the  land  on  his  own  business.  The 
king  and  his  ministers,  as  well  as  the  queen, 
kept  in  constant  communication  with  him. 
With  Montmorin  he  dined  continually,  and 
was  consulted  at  every  stage.  But  he  could 
not  prevail  on  them  to  adopt  the  bold,  vigorous 


250  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

measures  lie  deemed  necessary ;  his  plain  speak 
ing  startled  them,  and  they  feared  it  would  not 
suit  the  temper  of  the  people.  He  drafted 
numerous  papers  for  them,  among  others  a  royal 
speech,  which  the  king  liked,  but  which  his 
ministers  prevented  him  from  using.  In  fact, 
it  had  grown  to  be  hopeless  to  try  to  help  the 
court ;  for  the  latter  pursued  each  course  by 
fits  and  starts,  now  governed  by  advice  from 
Cobleritz,  now  by  advice  from  Brussels,  and 
then  for  a  brief  spasm  going  its  own  gait.  All 
the  while  the  people  at  large  knew  their  own 
minds  no  better  than  poor  Louis  knew  his,  and 
cheered  him  with  fervent  ecstasy  one  day,  only 
to  howl  at  him  with  malignant  fury  the  next. 
With  such  a  monarch  and  such  subjects  it  is 
not  probable  that  any  plan  would  have  worked 
well ;  but  Morris's  was  the  ablest  as  well  as 
the  boldest  and  best  defined  of  the  many  that 
were  offered  to  the  wretched,  halting  king;  and 
had  his  proposed  policy  been  pursued,  things 
might  have  come  out  better,  and  they  could  not 
possibly  have  come  out  worse. 

All  through  these  engrossing  affairs,  he  kept 
up  the  liveliest  interest  in  what  was  going  on 
in  his  own  country,  writing  home  shrewd  ob 
servations  on  every  step  taken.  One  of  his  re 
marks  deserves  to  be  kept  in  mind.  In  speak 
ing  of  the  desire  of  European  nations  to  legis- 


RETURN  TO  PARTS.  251 

late  against  the  introduction  of  our  produce, 
he  says  that  this  effort  has  after  all  its  bright 
side;  because  it  will  force  us  "to  make  great 
and  rapid  progress  in  useful  manufactures.  This 
alone  is  wanting  to  complete  our  independence. 
We  shall  then  be,  as  it  were,  a  world  by  our 
selves." 


CHAPTER  X. 

MINISTER   TO   FRANCE. 

IN  the  spring  of  1792,  Morris  received  hia 
credentials  as  minister  to  France.  There  had 
been  determined  opposition  in  the  Senate  to 
the  confirmation  of  his  appointment,  which  was 
finally  carried  only  by  a  vote  of  sixteen  to 
eleven,  mainly  through  the  exertions  of  Rufus 
King.  His  opponents  urged  the  failure  of  the 
British  negotiations,  the  evidences  repeatedly 
given  of  his  proud,  impatient  spirit,  and  above 
all  his  hostility  to  the  French  Revolution,  as 
reasons  why  he  should  not  be  made  minister. 
Washington,  however,  as  well  as  Hamilton, 
King,  and  the  other  federalists,  shared  most  of 
Morris's  views  with  regard  to  the  Revolution, 
and  insisted  upon  his  appointment. 

But  the  president,  as  good  and  wise  a  friend  as 
Morris  had,  thought  it  best  to  send  him  a  word 
of  warning,  coupling  with  the  statement  of  his 
own  unfaltering  trust  and  regard,  the  reasons 
why  the  new  diplomat  should  observe  more 
circumspection  than  his  enemies  thought  him 


MINISTER  TO  FRANCE.  253 

capable  of  showing.  For  his  opponents  asserted 
that  his  brilliant,  lively  imagination  always  in 
clined  him  to  act  so  promptly  as  to  leave  no  time 
for  cool  judgment,  and  was,  wrote  Washington, 
"the  primary  cause  of  those  sallies  which  too 
often  offend,  and  of  that  ridicule  of  character 
which  begets  enmity  not  easy  to  be  forgotten, 
but  which  might  easily  be  avoided  if  it  were 
under  the  control  of  caution  and  prudence.  .  .  . 
By  reciting  [their  objections]  I  give  you  a 
proof  of  my  friendship,  if  I  give  none  of  my 
policy." 

Morris  took  his  friend's  advice  in  good  part, 
and  profited  by  it  as  far  as  lay  in  his  nature.  He 
knew  that  he  had  a  task  of  stupendous  difficulty 
before  him  ;  as  it  would  be  almost  impossible  for 
a  minister  to  steer  clear  of  the  quarrels  spring 
ing  from  the  ferocious  hatred  born  to  each  other 
by  the  royalists  and  the  various  republican  fac 
tions.  To  stand  well  with  all  parties  he  knew 
was  impossible :  but  he  thought  it  possible,  and 
merely  so,  to  stand  well  with  the  best  people  in 
each,  without  greatly  offending  the  others ;  and 
in  order  to  do  this,  he  had  to  make  up  his  mind 
to  mingle  with  the  worst  as  well  as  the  best,  to 
listen  unmoved  to  falsehoods  so  foul  and  calum 
nies  so  senseless  as  to  seem  the  ravings  of  in-  i 
sanity;  and  meanwhile  to  wear  a  front  so  firm  j 
and  yet  so  courteous  as  to  ward  off  insult  from 


254  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

his  country  and  injury  from  himself  during  the 
days  when  th,e  whole  people  went  crazy  with 
the  blood-lust,  when  his  friends  were  butchered 
by  scores  around  him,  and  when  the  rulers  had 
fulfiled  Mirabeau's  terrible  prophecy,  and  had 
u  paved  the  streets  with  their  bodies." 

But  when  he  began  his  duties,  he  was  already 
entangled  in  a  most  dangerous  intrigue,  one  of 
whose  very  existence  he  should  not,  as  a  foreign 
minister,  have  known,  still  less  have  entered 
into.  He  got  enmeshed  in  it  while  still  a 
private  citizen,  and  could  not  honorably  with 
draw,  for  it  dealt  with  nothing  less  than  the 
escape  of  the  king  and  queen  from  Paris.  His 
chivalrous  sympathy  for  the  two  hemmed-in, 
hunted  creatures,  threatened  by  madmen  and 
counseled  by  fools,  joined  with  his  character 
istic  impulsiveness  and  fearlessness,  to  incline 
him  to  make  an  effort  to  save  them  from  their 
impending  doom.  A  number  of  plans  had  been 
made  to  get  the  king  out  of  Paris  ;  and  as  the 
managers  of  each  were  of  necessity  ignorant  of 
all  the  rest,  they  clashed  with  and  thwarted 
one  another.  Morris's  scheme  was  made  in 
concert  with  a  M.  de  Monciel,  one  of  the  royal 
ministers,  and  some  other  French  gentlemen  ; 
and  their  measures  were  so  well  taken  that  they 
would  doubtless  have  succeeded  had  not  the 
king's  nerve  invariably  failed  him  at  the  critical 


MINISTER  TO  FRANCE.  255 

moment,  and  brought  delay  after  delay.  The 
Swiss  guards,  faithful  to  their  salt,  were  always 
ready  to  cover  his  flight,  and  Lafayette  would 
have  helped  them. 

Louis  preferred  Morris's  plan  to  any  of  the 
others  offered,  and  gave  a  most  striking  proof 
of  his  preference  by  sending  to  the  latter,  to 
wards  the  end  of  July,  to  say  how  much  he 
regretted  that  his  advice  had  not  been  fol 
lowed,  and  to  ask  him  if  he  would  not  take 
charge  of  the  royal  papers  and  money.  Morris 
was  unwilling  to  take  the  papers,  but  finally 
consented  to  receive  the  money,  amounting  in 
all  to  nearly  seven  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
livres,  which  was  to  be  paid  out  in  hiring  and 
bribing  the  men  who  stood  in  the  way  of  the 
escape  ;  for  most  of  the  revolutionists  were  as 
venal  as  they  were  bloodthirsty.  Still  the 
king  lingered;  then  came  the  10th  of  August; 
\  the  Swiss  guards  were  slaughtered,  and  the 
whole  scheme  was  at  an  end.  Some  of  the  men 
engaged  in  the  plot  were  suspected;  one,  D'An- 
gre'mont,  was  seized  and  condemned,  but  he 
went  to  his  death  without  betraying  his  fellows. 
The  others,  by  the  liberal  use  of  the  money  in 
Morris's  possession,  were  saved,  the  authorities 
being  bribed  to  wink  at  their  escape  or  conceal 
ment.  Out  of  the  money  that  was  left  ad 
vances  were  made  to  Monciel  and  others;  finally, 


256  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

in  1796,  Morris  gave  an  accurate  account  of  the 
expenditures  to  the  dead  king's  daughter,  the 
Duchesse  d'Angouleme,  then  at  the  Austrian 
court,  and  turned  over  to  her  the  remainder, 
consisting  of  a  hundred  and  forty-seven  pounds. 

Of  course  all  this  was  work  in  which  no  min 
ister  had  the  least  right  to  share;  but  the  whole 
crisis  was  one  so  completely  without  precedent 
that  it  is  impossible  to  blame  Morris  for  what 
he  did.  The  extraordinary  trust  reposed  in 
him,  and  the  feeling  that  his  own  exertions 
were  all  that  lay  between  the  two  unfortunate 
sovereigns  and  their  fate,  roused  his  gallantry 
and  blinded  him  to  the  risk  he  himself  ran,  as 
well  as  to  the  hazard  to  which  he  put  his  coun 
try's  interests.  He  was  under  no  illusion  as 
to  the  character  of  the  people  whom  he  .was 
trying  to  serve.  He  utterly  disapproved  the 
queen's  conduct,  and  he  despised  the  king,  not 
ing  the  latter's  feebleness  and  embarrassment, 
even  on  the  occasion  of  his  presentation  at 
court ;  he  saw  in  them  "a  lack  of  mettle  which 
would  ever  prevent  them  from  being  truly 
royal  "  ;  but  when  in  their  mortal  agony  they 
held  out  their  hands  to  him  for  aid,  his  generous 
nature  forbade  him  to  refuse  it,  nor  could  he 
look  on  unmoved  as  they  went  helplessly  down 
to  destruction. 

The  rest  of  his  two  years'  history  as  minister 


MINISTER   TO  FRANCE.  257 

forms  one  of  the  most  brilliant  chapters  in  our 
diplomatic  annals.  His  boldness,  and  the  frank 
ness  with  which  he  expressed  his  opinions, 
though  they  at  times  irritated  beyond  measure 
the  factions  of  the  revolutionists  who  succes 
sively  grasped  a  brief  but  tremendous  power, 
yet  awed  them,  in  spite  of  themselves.  He  soon 
learned  to  combine  courage  and  caution,  and 
his  readiness,  wit,  and  dash  always  gave  him  a 
certain  hold  over  the  fiery  nation  to  which  he 
was  accredited.  He  was  firm  and  dignified  in 
insisting  on  proper  respect  being  shown  our 
flag,  while  he.  did  all  he  could  to  hasten  the 
payment  of  our  obligations  to  France.  A  very 
large  share  of  his  time,  also,  was  taken  up  with 
protesting  against  the  French  decrees  aimed 
at  neutral  —  which  meant  American  —  com 
merce,  and  with  interfering  to  save  American 
ship-masters,  who  had  got  into  trouble  by  un 
wittingly  violating  them.  Like  his  successor, 
Mr.  Washburne,  in  the  time  of  the  commune, 
Morris  was  the  only  foreign  minister  who  re 
mained  in  Paris  during  the  terror.  He  stayed 
at  the  risk  of  his  life ;  and  yet,  while  fully 
aware  of  his  danger,  he  carried  himself  as  coolly 
as  if  in  a  time  of  profound  peace,  and  never 
flinched  for  a  moment  when  he  was  obliged  for 
his  country's  sake  to  call  to  account  the  rulers  of 
France  for  the  time  being  —  men  whose  power 


258  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

was  as  absolute  as  it  was  ephemeral  and  bloody, 
who  had  indulged  their  desire  for  slaughter 
with  the  unchecked  ferocity  of  madmen,  and 
who  could  by  a  word  have  had  him  slain  as 
thousands  had  been  slain  before  him.  Few 
foreign  ministers  have  faced  such  difficulties, 
and  not  one  has  ever  come  near  to  facing  such 
dangers  as  Morris  did  during  his  two  years' 
term  of  service.  His  feat  stands  by  itself  in 
diplomatic  history  ;  and,  as  a  minor  incident, 
the  letters  and  despatches  he  sent  home  give 
a  very  striking  view  of  the  French  Revolution. 
/  As  soon  as  he  was  appointed  he  went  to  see 
the  French  minister  of  foreign  affairs  ;  and  in 
answer  to  an  observation  of  the  latter  stated 
with  his  customary  straightforwardness  that  it 
was  true  that,  while  a  mere  private  individual, 
sincerely  friendly  to  France,  and  desirous  of 
helping  her,  and  whose  own  nation  could  not 
be  compromised  by  his  acts,  he  had  freely  taken 
part  in  passing  events,  had  criticised  the  con 
stitution,  and  advised  the  king  and  his  minis 
ters  ;  but  he  added  that,  now  that  he  was  a  pub 
lic  man,  he  would  no  longer  meddle  with  their 
affairs.  To  this  resolution  he  kept,  save  that, 
as  already  described,  sheer  humanity  induced 
him  to  make  an  effort  to  save  the  king's  life. 
He  had  predicted  what  would  ensue  as  the  re 
sult  of  the  exaggerated  decentralization  into 


MINISTER  TO  FRANCE.  259 

which  the  opponents  of  absolutism  had  rushed  ; 
when  they  had  split  the  state  up  into  more  than 
forty  thousand  sovereignties,  each  district  the 
sole  executor  of  the  law,  and  the  only  judge  of 
its  propriety,  and  therefore  obedient  to  it  only 
so  long  as  it  listed,  and  until  rendered  hostile  by 
the  ignorant  whim  or  ferocious  impulse  of  the 
moment ;  and  now  he  was  to  see  his  predictions 
come  true.  In  that  brilliant  and  able  state 
paper,  the  address  he  had  drawn  up  for  Louis  to 
deliver  when,  in  1791,  the  latter  accepted  the 
constitution,  the  key-note  of  the  situation  was 
struck  in  the  opening  words  :  4%  It  is  no  longer  a 
king  who  addresses  you,  Louis  XVI.  is  a  private 
individual " ;  and  lie  had  then  scored  off,  point 
by  point,  the  faults  in  a  document  that  created 
an  unwieldy  assembly  of  men  unaccustomed  to 
govern,  that  destroyed  the  principle  of  author 
ity,  though  no  other  could  appeal  to  a  people 
helpless  in  their  new-born  liberty,  and  that 
created  out  of  one  whole  a  jarring  multitude  of 
fractional  sovereignties.  Now  he  was  to  see 
one  of  these  same  sovereignties  rise  up  in  suc 
cessful  rebellion  against  the  government  that 
represented  the  whole,  destroy  it  and  usurp  its 
power,  and  establish  over  all  France  the  rule 
of  an  anarchic  despotism  which,  by  what  seems 
to  a  free  American  a  gross  misnomer,  they 
called  a  democracy. 


260  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

All  through  June,  at  the  beginning  of  which 
month  Morris  had  been  formally  presented  at 
court,  the  excitement  and  tumult  kept  increas 
ing.  When,  on  the  20th,  the  mob  forced  the 
gates  of  the  chateau,  and  made  the  king  put 
on  the  red  cap,  Morris  wrote  in  his  Diary  that 
the  constitution  had  given  its  last  groan.  A 
few  days  afterwards  he  told  Lafayette  that  in 
six  weeks  everything  would  be  over,  and  tried 
to  persuade  him  that  his  only  chance  was  to 
make  up  his  mind  instantly  to  fight  either  for 
a  good  constitution  or  for  the  wretched  piece 
of  paper  which  bore  the  name.  Just  six  weeks 
to  a  day  from  the  date  of  this  prediction  came 
the  10 th  of  August  to  verify  it. 

Throughout  July  the  fevered  pulses  of  the 
people  beat  with  always  greater  heat.  Looking 
at  the  maddened  mob  the  American  minister 
thanked  God  from  his  heart  that  in  his  own 
country  there  was  no  such  populace,  and  prayed 
with  unwonted  earnestness  that  our  education 
and  morality  should  forever  stave  off  such  an 
evil.  At  court  even  the  most  purblind  dimly 
saw  their  doom.  Calling  there  one  morning 
he  chronicles  witli  a  matter  of  fact  brevity,  im 
pressive  from  its  very  baldness,  that  nothing  of 
note  had  occurred  except  that  they  had  stayed 
up  all  night  expecting  to  be  murdered.  He 
wrote  home  that  he  could  not  tell  "whether  the 


MINISTER  TO  FRANCE.  261 

king  would  live  through  the  storm  ;  for  it  blew 
hard." 

His  horror  of  the  base  mob,  composed  of  peo 
ple  whose  kind  was  absolutely  unknown  in 
America,  increased  continually,  as  he  saw  them 
going  on  from  crimes  that  were  great  to  crimes 
that  were  greater,  incited  by  the  demagogues 
who  flattered  them  and  roused  their  passions 
and  appetites ;  'and  blindly  raging  because  they 
were  of  necessity  disappointed  in  the  golden 
prospects  held  out  to  them.  He  scorned  the 
folly  of  the  enthusiasts  and  doctrinaires  who 
had  made  a  constitution  all  sail  and  no  ballast, 
that  overset  at  the  first  gust ;  who  had  freed 
from  all  restraint  a  mass  of  men  as  savage  and 
licentious  as  they  were  wayward  ;  who  had  put 
the  executive  in  the  power  of  the  legislature, 
and  this  latter  at  the  mercy  of  the  leaders  who 
could  most  strongly  influence  and  inflame  the 
mob.  But  his  contempt  for.  the  victims  almost 
exceeded  his  anger  at  their  assailants.  The 
king,  who  could  suffer  with  firmness,  and  who 
could  act  either  not  at  all,  or  else  with  the 
worst  possible  effect,  had  the  head  and  heart 
that  might  have  suited  the  monkish  idea  of  a 
female  saint,  but  which  were  hopelessly  out  of 
place  in  any  rational  being  supposed  to  be  fitted 
for  doing  good  in  the  world.  Morris  wrote 
home  that  he  knew  his  friend  Hamilton  had  no 


262  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

particular  aversion  to  kings,  and  would  not  be 
lieve  them  to  be  tigers ;  but  that  if  Hamilton 
Came  to  Europe  to  see  for  himself,  he  would 
surely  believe  them  to  be  monkeys  ;  the  Em 
press  of  Russia  was  the  only  reigning  sovereign 
whose  talents  were  not  "  considerably  below 
par."  At  the  moment  of  the  final  shock  the 
court  was  involved  in  a  set  of  paltry  intrigues 
"  unworthy  of  anything  above  the  rank  of  a 
footman  or  a  chambermaid.  Every  one  had  his 
or  her  little  project,  and  every  little  project  had 
some  abettors.  Strong,  manly  counsels  fright 
ened  the  weak,  alarmed  the  envious,  and 
wounded  the  enervated  minds  of  the  lazy  and 
luxurious."  The  few  such  counsels  that  ap 
peared  were  always  approved,  rarely  adopted, 
and  never  followed  out. 

Then  in  the  sweltering  heat  of  August,  the 
end  came.  A  raving,  furious  horde  stormed 
the  chateau,  and  murdered,  one  by  one,  the 
brave  mountaineers  who  gave  their  lives  for  a 
sovereign  too  weak  to  be  worthy  of  such  gal 
lant  bloodshed.  King  and  queen  fled  to  the 
National  Assembly,  and  the  monarchy  was 
over.  Immediately  after  the  awful  catastrophe 
Morris  wrote  to  a  friend :  "  The  voracity  of  the 
court,  the  haughtiness  of  the  nobles,  the  sensu 
ality  of  the  church,  have  met  their  punishment 
in  the  road  of  their  transgressions.  The  op- 


MINISTER   TO  FRANCE.  263 

pressor  has  been  squeezed  by  the  hands  of  the 
oppressed  ;  but  there  remains  yet  to  be  acted 
an  awful  scene  in  this  great  tragedy,  played  on 
the  theatre  of  the  universe  for  the  instruction 
of  mankind." 

Not  the  less  did  he  dare  everything,  and 
jeopardize  his  own  life  in  trying  to  save  some 
at  least  among  the  innocent  who  had  been  over 
thrown  in  the  crash  of  the  common  ruin.  When 
on  the  10th  of  August  the  whole  city  lay  abject 
at  the  mercy  of  the  mob,  hunted  men  and 
women,  bereft  of  all  they  had,  and  fleeing  from. 
a  terpible  death,  witli  no  hiding-place,  no  friend 
who  could  shield  them,  turned  in  their  terror- 
struck  despair  to  the  one  man  in  whose  fearless 
ness  and  generous  gallantry  they  could  trust. 
The  shelter  of  Morris's  house  and  flag  was 
sought  from  early  morning  till  past  midnight 
by  people  who  had  nowhere  else  to  go  and  who 
felt  that  within  his  walls  they  were  sure  of  at 
least  a  brief  safety  from  the  maddened  sav 
ages  in  the  streets.  As  far  as  possible  they 
were  sent  off  to  places  of  greater  security  ;  but 
some  had  to  stay  with  him  till  the  storm  lulled 
for  a  moment.  An  American  gentleman  who 
was  in  Paris  on  that  memorable  day,  after  view 
ing  the  sack  of  the  Tuileries,  thought  it  right 
to  go  to  the  house  of  the  American  minister. 
He  found  him  surrounded  by  a  score  of  people, 


264  GCUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

of  both  sexes,  among  them  the  old  Count 
d'Estaing,  and  other  men  of  note,  who  had 
fought  side  by  side  with  us  in  our  war  for  in 
dependence,  and  whom  now  our  flag  protected 
in  their  hour  of  direst  need.  Silence  reigned, 
only  broken  occasionally  by  the  weeping  of  the 
women  and  children.  As  his  visitor  was  leav 
ing,  Morris  took  him  to  one  side,  and  told  him 
that  he  had  no  doubt  there  were  persons  on  the 
watch  who  would  find  fault  with  his  conduct 
as  a  minister  in  receiving  and  protecting  these 
people;  that  they  had  come  of  their  own  accord, 
uninvited.  ki  Whether  my  house  will  be  a  pro 
tection  to  them  or  to  me,  God  only  knows ;  but 
I  will  not  turn  them  out  of  it,  let  what  will  hap 
pen  to  me  ;  you  see,  sir,  they  are  all  persons  to 
whom  our  country  is  more  or  less  indebted,  and 
had  they  no  such  claim  upon  me,  it  would  be 
inhuman  to  force  them  into  the  hands  of  the 
assassins."  No  one  of  Morris's  countrymen 
can  read  his  words  even  now  without  feeling  a 
throb  of  pride  in  the  dead  statesman,  who,  a 
century  ago,  held  up  so  high  the  honor  of  his 
nation's  name  in  the  times  when  the  souls  of 
all  but  the  very  bravest  were  tried  and  found 
wanting. 

Soon  after  this  he  ceased  writing  in  his  Diary, 
for  fear  it  might  fall  into  the  hands  of  men  who 
would  use  it  to  incriminate  his  friends  ;  and  for 


MINISTER  TO  FRANCE.  265 

the  same  reason  he  had  also  to  be  rather  wary 
in  what  lie  wrote  home,  as  his  letters  fre 
quently  bore  marks  of  being  opened,  thanks  to 
what  he  laughingly  called  "patriotic  curiosity." 
He  was,  however,  perfectly  fearless  as  regards 
any  ill  that  might  befall  himself ;  his  circum 
spection  was  only  exercised  on  behalf  of  others, 
and  his  own  opinions  were  given  as  frankly  as 
ever. 

He  pictured  the  French  as  huddled  together, 
in  an  unreasoning  panic,  like  cattle  before  a 
thunderstorm.  Their  every  act  increased  his 
distrust  of  their  capacity  for  self-government. 
They  were  for  the  time  agog  with  their  repub 
lic,  and  rea<iy  to  adopt  any  form  of  govern 
ment  with  a  huzza  ;  but  that  they  would  adopt 
a  good  form,  or,  having  adopted  it,  keep  it,  he 
did  not  believe  ;  and  he  saw  that  the  great 
mass  of  the  population  were  already  veering 
round,  under  the  pressure  of  accumulating 
horrors,  until  they  would  soon  be  ready  to  wel 
come  as  a  blessing  even  a  despotism,  if  so  they 
could  gain  security  to  life  and  property.  They 
had  made  the  common  mistake  of  believing 
that  to  enjoy  liberty  they  had  only  to  abolish  au 
thority  ;  and  the  equally  common  consequence 
was,  that  they  were  now,  through  anarchy,  on 
the  high  road  to  absolutism.  Said  Morris  : 
"  Since  I  have  been  in  this  country  I  have  seen 


266  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

the  worship  of  many  idols,  and  but  little  of  the 
true  God.  I  have  seen  many  of  these  idols 
broken,  and  some  of  them  beaten  to  the  dust. 
I  have  seen  the  late  constitution  in  one  short 
year  admired  as  a  stupendous  monument  of  hu 
man  wisdom,  and  ridiculed  as  an  egregious  pro 
duction  of  folly  and  vice.  I  wish  much,  very 
much,  the  happiness  of  this  inconstant  people. 
I  love  them,  I  feel  grateful  for  their  efforts  in 
our  cause,  and  I  consider  the  establishment  of 
a  good  constitution  here  as  the  principal  means, 
under  Divine  Providence,  of  extending  the 
blessings  of  freedom  to  the  many  millions  of 
my  fellow-men  who  groan  in  bondage  on  the 
continent  of  Europe.  But  I  do  not  greatly  in 
dulge  the  flattering  illusions  of  hope,  because  I 
do  not  yet  perceive  that  reformation  of  morals 
without  which  liberty  is  but  an  empty  sound." 
These  words  are  such  as  could  only  come  from 
a  genuine  friend  of  France,  and  champion  of 
freedom ;  from  a  strong,  earnest  man,  saddened 
by  the  follies  of  dreamers,  and  roused  to  stern 
anger  by  the  licentious  wickedness  of  scoun 
drels  who  used  the  name  of  liberty  to  cloak  the 
worst  abuses  of  its  substance. 

His  stay  in  Paris  was  now  melancholy  indeed. 
The  city  was  shrouded  in  a  gloom  only  relieved 
by  the  frenzied  tumults  that  grew  steadily  more 
numerous.  The  ferocious  craving  once  roused 


MINISTER  TO  FRANCE.  267 

could  not  be  sated ;  the  thirst  grew  ever  stronger 
as  the  draughts  were  deeper.  The  danger  to 
Morris's  own  person  merely  quickened  his 
pulses,  and  roused  his  strong,  brave  nature  ;  he 
liked  excitement,  and  the  strain  that  would 
have  been  too  tense  for  weaker  nerves  keyed 
his  own  up  to  a  fierce,  half-exultant  thrilling. 
But  the  woes  that  befell  those  who  had  be 
friended  him  caused  him  the  keenest  grief.  It 
was  almost  unbearable  to  be  seated  quietly  at 
dinner,  and  hear  by  accident  "  that  a  friend 
was  on  his  way  to  the  place  of  execution,''  and 
to  have  to  sit  still  and  wonder  which  of  the 
guests  dining  with  him  would  be  the  next  to  go 
to  the  scaffold.  The  vilest  criminals  swarmed 
in  the  streets,  and  amused  themselves  by  tear 
ing  the  earrings  from  women's  ears,  and  snatch 
ing  away  their  watches.  When  the  priests 
shut  up  in  the  carnes,  and  the  prisoners  in  the 
abbaie  were  murdered,  the  slaughter  went  on 
all  day,  and  eight  hundred  men  were  engaged 
in  it. 

He  wrote  home  that,  to  give  a  true  picture 
of  France,  he  would  have  to  paint  it  like  an 
Indian  warrior,  black  and  red.  The  scenes 
that  passed  were  literally  beyond  the  imagina 
tion  of  the  American  mind.  The  most  hideous 
and  nameless  atrocities  were  so  common  as  to 
be  only  alluded  to  incidentally,  and  to  be  re- 


268  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

cited  in  the  most  matter-of-fact  way  in  connec 
tion  with  other  events.  For  instance,  a  man 
applied  to  the  Convention  for  a  recompense  for 
damage  done  to  his  quarry,  a  pit  dug  deep 
through  the  surface  of  the  earth  into  the  stone 
bed  beneath  :  the  damage  consisted  in  such  a 
number  of  dead  bodies  having  been  thrown  into 
the  pit  as  to  choke  it  up  so  that  he  could  no 
longer  get  men  to  work  it.  Hundreds,  who  had 
been  the  first  in  the  land,  were  thus  destroyed 
without  form  or  trial,  and  their  bodies  thrown 
like  dead  dogs  into  the  first  hole  that  offered. 
Two  hundred  priests  were  killed  for  no  other 
crime  than  having  been  conscientiously  scrupu 
lous  about  taking  the  prescribed  oath.  The 
guillotine  went  smartly  on,  watched  with  a 
devilish  merriment  by  the  fiends  who  were 
themselves  to  perish  by  the  instrument  their 
own  hands  had  wrought.  "  Heaven  only  knew 
who  was  next  to  drink  of  the  dreadful  cup  ;  as 
far  as  man  could  tell,  there  was  to  be  no  lack 
of  liquor  for  some  time  to  come." 

Among  the  new  men  who,  one  after  another, 

,        sprang  into  the  light,  to  maintain  their  unsteady 

/        footing  as  leaders  for  but  a  brief  time   before 

I         toppling  into  the  dark  abyss  of  death  or  oblivion 

I         that  waited  for  each  and  all,  Dumouriez  was  for 

V      the   moment  the   most    prominent.     He    stood 

\towards  the  Gironde  much  as  Lafayette  had 


MINISTER    TO  FRANCE.  269 

stood  towards  the  Constitutionalists  of  1789  : 
he  led  the  army,  as  Lafayette  once  had  led  it; 
and  as  the  constitutional  monarchists  had  fallen 
before  his  fellow-republicans,  so  both  he  and 
they  were  to  go  down  before  the  even  wilder 
extremists  of  the  "  Mountain.'1  For  the  factions 
in  Paris,  face  to  face  with  the  banded  might  of 
the  European  monarchies,  and  grappling  in  a 
grim  death-struggle  with  the  counter -revolu 
tionists  of  the  provinces,  yet  fought  one  another 
with  the  same  ferocity  they  showed  towards  the 
common  foe.  Nevertheless,  success  was  theirs; 
for  against  opponents  only  less  wicked  than 
themselves  they  moved  with  an  infinitely  su 
perior  fire  and  enthusiasm.  Reeking  with  the 
blood  of  the  guiltless,  steeped  in  it  to  the  lips, 
branded  with  fresh  memories  of  crimes  and  in 
famies  without  number,  and  yet  feeling  in  their 
very  marrow  that  they  were  avenging  centuries 
of  grinding  and  intolerable  thralldom,  and  that 
the  cause  for  which  they  fought  was  just  and 
righteous  ;  with  shameless  cruelty  and  corrup 
tion  eating  into  their  hearts'  core,  yet  with  their 
foreheads  kindled  by  the  light  of  a  glorious 
morning,  —  they  moved  with  a  ruthless  energy 
that  paralyzed  their  opponents,  the  worn-out, 
tottering,  crazy  despotisms,  rotten  with  vice, 
despicable  in  their  ludicrous  pride  of  caste, 
moribund  in  their  military  pedantry,  and  fore- 


270  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

doomed  to  perish  in  the  conflict  they  had 
courted.  The  days  of  Danton  and  Robespierre 
are  not  days  to  which  a  French  patriot  cares  to 
look  back;  but  at  any  rate  lie  can  regard  them 
without  the  shame  he  must  feel  when  he  thinks 
of  the  times  of  Louis  Quinze.  Danton  and  his 
like,  at  least,  were  men,  and  stood  far,  far  above 
the  palsied  coward  — a  eunuch  in  his  lack  of  all 
virile  virtues  —  who  misruled  France  for  half- 
a  century  ;  who,  with  his  followers,  indulged 
in  every  crime  and  selfish  vice  known,  save 
only  such  as  needed  a  particle  of  strength,  or 
the  least  courage,  in  the  committing. 

Morris  first  met  Dumouriez  when  the  latter 
was  minister  of  foreign  affairs,  shortly  before 
the  poor  king  was  driven  from  the  Tuilleries. 
He  dined  with  him,  and  afterwards  noted  down 
that  the  society  was  noisy  and  in  bad  style  ; 
for  the  grace  and  charm  of  French  social  life  « 
were  gone,  and  the  raw  republicans  were  ill  at 
ease  in  the  drawing-room.  At  this  time  Mor 
ris  commented  often  on  the  change  in  the  look 
of  Paris :  all  his  gay  friends  gone  ;  the  city 
sombre  and  uneasy.  When  he  walked  through 
the  streets,  in  the  stifling  air  of  a  summer  hot 
beyond  precedent,  as  if  the  elements  sympa 
thized  with  the  passions  of  men,  he  met,  instead 
of  the  brilliant  company  of  former  days,  onlv 
the  few  peaceable  citizens  left,  hurrying  on  their 


MINISTER  TO  FRANCE.  271 

ways  with  frightened  watchfulness;  or  else 
groups  of  lolling  ruffians,  with  sinister  eyes  and 
brutalized  faces ;  or  he  saw  in  the  Champs  de 
Mars  squalid  ragamuffins  signing  the  petition 
for  «fche  decMance. 

Morris  wrote  Washington  that  Dumouriez 
was  a  bold,  determined  man,  bitterly  hostile  to 
the  Jacobins  and  all  the  extreme  revolutionary 
clubs,  and,  once  he  was  in  power,  willing  to 
risk  his  own  life  in  the  effort  to  put  them  down. 
However,  the  hour  of  the  Jacobins  had  not  yet 
struck,  and  the  Revolution  had  now  been  per 
mitted  to  gather  such  headway  that  it  could  be 
stopped  only  by  a  master  genius ;  and  Dumou 
riez  was  none  such. 

Still  he  was  an  able  man,  and,  as  Morris 
wrote  home,  in  his  military  operations  he  com 
bined  the  bravery  of  a  skilled  soldier  and  the 
arts  of  an  astute  politician.  To  be  sure,  his 
victories  were  not  in  themselves  very  note 
worthy  ;  the  artillery  skirmish  at  Valmy  was 
decided  by  the  reluctance  of  the  Germans  to 
come  on,  not  by  the  ability  of  the  French  to 
withstand  them  ;  and  at  Jemappes  the  impe 
rialists  were  hopelessly  outnumbered.  Still  the 
results  were  most  important,  and  Dumouriez 
overran  Flanders  in  the  face  of  hostile  Europe. 
He  at  once  proceeded  to  revolutionize  the  gov 
ernment  of  his  conquest  in  the  most  approved 


272  GOUVERNEUR   MORRIS. 

French  fashion,  which  was  that  all  the  neigh 
bors  of  France  should  receive  liberty  whether 
or  no,  and  should  moreover  pay  the  expense 
of  having  it  thrust  upon  them;  accordingly  he 
issued  a  proclamation  to  his  new  fellow-citizens, 
"which  might  be  summed  up  in  a  few  words  as 
being  an  order  to  them  to  be  free  forthwith, 
according  to  his  ideas  of  freedom,  on  pain  of 
military  execution." 

He  had  things  all  his  own  way  for  the  mo 
ment,  but  after  a  while  he  was  defeated  by  the 
Germans  ;  then  while  the  Gironde  tottered  to 
its  fall,  he  fled  to  the  very  foes  he  had  been 
fighting,  as  the  only  way  of  escaping  deatli  from 
the  men  whose  favorite  he  had  been.  Morris 
laughed  bitterly  at  the  fickle  people.  One  an 
ecdote  he  gives  is  worth  preserving:  "It  is  a 
year  ago  that  a  person  who  mixed  in  tumults  to 
see  what  was  doing,  told  me  of  a  sans  culottes 
who,  bellowing  against  poor  Lafayette,  when 
Petion  appeared,  changed  at  once  his  note  to 
''Vive  Petion  f  and  then,  turning  round  to  one 
of  his  companions,  4  Vois  tu  !  C'est  notre  ami, 
n'est  ce  pas?  Eh  bien,  il  passera  comme  les 
autres.'  And,  lo  !  the  prophecy  is  fulfilled  ;  and 
I  this  instant  learn  that  Petion,  confined  to  his 
room  as  a  traitor  or  conspirator,  has  fled,  on  the 
24th  of  June,  1793,  from  those  whom  he  sent, 
on  the  20th  of  June,  1792,  to  assault  the  king 


MINISTER  TO  FRANCE.  273 

in  the  Tuileries  In  short  you  will  find,  in  the 
list  of  those  who  were  ordered  by  their  brethren 
to  be  arrested,  the  names  of  those  who  have 
proclaimed  themselves  to  be  the  prime  movers 
of  the  revolution  of  the  10th  of  August,  and  the 
fathers  of  the  republic." 

About  the  time  the  sans  culottes  had  thus 
bellowed  against  Lafayette,  the  latter  met  Mor 
ris,  for  the  first  time  since  he  was  presented  at 
court  as  minister,  and  at  once  spoke  to  him  in 
his  tone  of  ancient  familiarity.  The  French 
man  had  been  brought  at  last  to  realize  the 
truth  of  his  American  friend's  theories  and  pre 
dictions.  It  was  much  too  late  to  save  himself, 
however.  After  the  10th  of  August  he  was 
proclaimed  by  the  Assembly,  found  his  troops 
falling  away  from  him,  and  fled  over  the  fron 
tier  ;  only  to  be  thrown  into  prison  by  the  allied 
monarchs,  who  acted  with  their  usual  folly  and 
baseness.  Morris,  contemptuously  impatient  of 
the  part  he  had  played,  wrote  of  him  :  "  Thus 
his  circle  is  completed.  He  has  spent  his  for 
tune  on  a  revolution,  and  is  now  crushed  by  the 
wheel  which  he  put  in  motion.  He  lasted  longer 
than  I  expected."  But  this  momentary  indig 
nation  soon  gave  way  to  a  generous  sympathy 
for  the  man  who  had  served  America  so  well, 
and  who,  if  without  the  great  abilities  necessary 
to  grapple  with  the  tumult  of  French  affairs, 


274  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

had  yet  always  acted  with  Such  unselfish  purity 
of  motive.  Lafayette,  as  soon  as  he  was  impris 
oned,  wrote  to  the  American  minister  in  Hol 
land,  alleging  that  he  had  surrendered  his  po 
sition  as  a  French  subject,  and  was  now  an 
American  citizen,  and  requesting  the  American 
representatives  in  Europe  to  procure  his  release. 
His  claim  was  of  course  untenable;  and,  though 
the  American  government  did  all  it  could  on  his 
behalf  through  its  foreign  ministers,  and  though 
Washington  himself  wrote  a  strong  letter  of 
appeal  to  the  Austrian  emperor,  he  remained 
in  prison  until  the  peace,  several  years  later. 

All  Lafayette's  fortune  was  gone,  and  while 
in  prison  he  was  reduced  to  want.  As  soon 
as  Morris  heard  this,  he  had  the  sum  of  ten 
thousand  florins  forwarded  to  the  prisoner  by 
the  United  States  bankers  at  Amsterdam  ; 
pledging  his  own  security  for  the  amount,  which 
was,  however,  finally  allowed  by  the  govern 
ment  under  the  name  of  compensation  for  La 
fayette's  military  services  in  America.  Morris 
was  even  more  active  in  befriending  Madame 
de  Lafayette  and  her  children.  To  the  former 
he  lent  from  his  own  private  funds  a  hundred 
thousand  livres,  enabling  her  to  pay  her  debts 
to  the  many  poor  people  who  had  rendered  ser 
vices  to  her  family.  To  the  proud,  sensitive 
lady  the  relief  was  great,  much  though  it  hurt 


MINISTER  TO  FRANCE.  275 

her  to  be  under  any  obligation  :  she  wrote  to  her 
friend  that  he  had  broken  the  chains  that  loaded 
her  down,  and  had  done  it  in  a  way  that  made 
her  feel  the  consolation,  rather  than  the  weight, 
of  the  obligation.  Bat  he  was  to  do  still  more 
for  her  ;  for,  when  she  was  cast  into  prison  by 
the  savage  Parisian  mob,  his  active  influence 
on  her  behalf  saved  her  from  death.  In  a  let 
ter  to  him,  written  some  time  later,  she  says, 
after  speaking  of  the  money  she  had  borrowed: 
"  This  is  a  slight  obligation,  it  is  true,  compared 
with  that  of  my  life,  but  allow  me  to  remember 
both  while  life  lasts,  with  a  sentiment  of  grati 
tude  which  it  is  precious  to  feel." 

There  were  others  whose  fortunes  turned  with 
the  wheel  of  fate,  for  whom  Morris  felt  no  such 
sympathy  as  for  the  Lafayettes.  Among  the 
number  was  the  Duke  of  Orleans,  now  trans 
formed  into  citoyen  Egalite.  Morris  credited 
this  graceless  debauchee  with  criminal  ambi 
tions  which  he  probably  did  not  possess,  saying 
that  he  doubted  the  public  virtue  of  a  profli 
gate,  and  could  not  help  distrusting  such  a 
man's  pretensions  ;  nor  is  it  likely  that  he  re 
gretted  much  the  fate  of  the  man  who  died 
under  the  same  guillotine  which,  with  his  as 
sent,  had  fallen  on  the  neck  of  the  king,  his 
cousin. 

It  needed  no  small  amount  of  hardihood  for 


276  GODVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

a  man  of  Morris's  prominence  and  avowed  sen- 
timents  to  stay  in  Paris  when  Death  was  mowing 
round  him  with  a  swath  at  once  so  broad  and 
so  irregular.  The  power  was  passing  rapidly 
from  hand  to  hand,  through  a  succession  of  men 
fairly  crazy  in  their  indifference  to  bloodshed. 
Not  a  single  other  minister  of  a  neutral  nation 
dared  stay.  In  fact,  the  foreign  representatives 
were  preparing  to  go  away  even  before  the  final 
vStroke  was  given  to  the  monarchy,  and  soon 
after  the  10th  of  August  the  entire  corps  diplo 
matique  left  Paris  as  rapidly  as  the  various 
members  could  get  their  passports.  These  the 
new  republican  government  was  at  first  very 
reluctant  to  grant ;  indeed,  when  the  Venetian 
ambassador  started  off  he  was  very  ignomin- 
iously  treated  and  brought  back.  Morris  went 
to  the  British  ambassador's  to  take  leave,  hav 
ing  received  much  kindness  from  him,  and  hav 
ing  been  very  intimate  in  his  house.  He  found 
Lord  Gower  in  a  tearing  passion  because  he 
could  not  get  passports ;  he  had  burned  his 
papers,  and  strongly  advised  his  guest  to  do 
likewise.  On  this  advice  the  latter  refused  to 
act,  nor  would  he  take  the  broad  hints  given 
him  to  the  effect  that  honor  required  him  to 
quit  the  country.  Morris  could  not  help  show 
ing  his  amusement  at  the  fear  and  anger  exhib 
ited  at  the  ambassador's,  "  which  exhibition  of 


MINISTER   TO  FRANCE.  277 

spirits  his  lordship  could  hardly  bear."  Talley 
rand,  who  was  getting  his  own  passport,  also 
did  all  in  his  power  to  persuade  the  American 
minister  to  leave,  but  without  avail.  Morris 
was  not  a  man  to  be  easily  shaken  in  any  deter 
mination  he  had  taken  after  careful  thought. 
He  wrote  back  to  Jefferson  that  his  opinion 
was  directly  opposed  to  the  views  of  such  people 
as  had  tried  to  persuade  him  that  his  own 
honor,  and  that  of  America,  required  him  to 
leave  France  ;  and  that  he  was  inclined  to  at 
tribute  such  counsel  mainly  to  fear.  It  was 
true  that  the  position  was  not  without  danger  ; 
but  he  presumed  that,  when  the  president  named 
him  to  the  embassy,  it  was  not  for  his  own  per 
sonal  pleasure  or  safety,  but  for  the  interests  of 
the  country  ;  and  these  he  could  certainly  serve 
best  by  staying. 

He  was  able  to  hold  his  own  only  by  a  mix 
ture  of  tact  and  firmness.  Any  signs  of  flinch 
ing  would  have  ruined  him  outright.  He  would 
submit  to  no  insolence.  The  minister  of  for 
eign  affairs  was,  with  his  colleagues,  engaged  in 
certain  schemes  in  reference  to  the  American 
debt,  which  were  designed  to  further  their  own 
private  interests  ;  he  tried  to  bully  Morris  into 
acquiescence,  and,  on  the  latter's  point-blank 
refusal,  sent  him  a  most  insulting  letter.  Mor-  \ 
ris  promptly  retorted  by  demanding  his  pass-  \ 


278  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

ports.  France,  however,  was  very  desirous  not 
to  break  with  the  United  States,  the  only  friend 
she  had  left  in  the  world  ;  and  the  offending 
minister  sent  a  sullen  letter  of  apology,  ask 
ing  him  to  reconsider  his  intention  to  leave, 
and  offering  entire  satisfaction  for  every  point 
of  which  he  complained.  Accordingly  Morris 
stayed. 

He  was,  however,  continually  exposed  to  in 
sults  and  worries,  which  were  always  apologized 
for  by  the  government  for  the  time  being,  on 
the  ground,  no  doubt  true,  that  in  such  a  period 
of  convulsions  it  was  impossible  to  control  their 
subordinate  agents.  Indeed,  the  changes  from 
one  form  of  anarchy  to  another  went  on  so 
rapidly  that  the  laws  of  nations  had  small 
chance  of  observance. 

One  evening  a  number  of  people,  headed  by 
a  commissary  of  the  section,  entered  his  house, 
and  demanded  to  search  it  for  arms  said  to  be 
hidden  therein.  Morris  took  a  high  tone,  and 
was  very  peremptory  with  them  ;  told  them 
that  they  should  not  examine  his  house,  that  it 
held  no  arms,  and  moreover  that,  if  he  had  pos 
sessed  any,  they  should  not  touch  one  of  them  ; 
he  also  demanded  the  name  of  "  the  blockhead 
or  rascal "  who  had  informed  against  him,  an 
nouncing  his  intention  to  bring  him  to  punish 
ment.  Finally  he  got  them  out  of  the  house, 


MINISTER  TO  FRANCE.  279 

and  the  next  morning  the  commissary  called 
with  many  apologies,  which  were  accepted. 

Another  time  he  was  arrested  in  the  street 
for  not  having  a  carte  de  citoyen,  but  he  was 
released  as  soon  as  it  was  found  out  who  he  was. 
Again  he  was  arrested  while  traveling  in  the 
country,  on  the  pretence  that  his  passport  was 
out  of  date;  an  insult  for  which  the  government 
at  once  made  what  amends  they  could.  His 
house  was  also  visited  another  time  by  armed 
men,  whom,  as  before,  he  persuaded  to  go  away. 
Once  or  twice,  in  the  popular  tumults,  even  his 
life  was  in  danger  ;  on  one  occasion  it  is  said 
that  it  was  only  saved  by  the  fact  of  his  having 
a  wooden  leg,  which  made  him  known  to  the 
mob  as  "  a  cripple  of  the  American  war  for 
freedom."  Rumors  even  got  abroad  in  England 
and  America  that  he  had  been  assassinated. 

Morris's  duties  were  manifold,  and  as  harass 
ing  to  himself  as  they  were  beneficial  to  his 
country.  Sometimes  he  would  interfere  on  be 
half  of  America  as  a  whole,  and  endeavor  to 
get  obnoxious  decrees  of  the  Assembly  repealed  ; 
and  again  he  would  try  to  save  some  private 
citizen  of  the  United  States  who  had  got  him 
self  into  difficulties.  Reports  of  the  French 
minister  of  foreign  affairs,  as  well  as  reports  of 
the  comite  de  salut  public,  alike  bear  testimony 
to  the  success  of  his  endeavors,  whenever  sue- 


280  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

cess  was  possible,  and  unconsciously  show  the 
value  of  the  services  he  rendered  to  his  country. 
Of  course  it  was  often  impossible  to  obtain  com 
plete  redress,  because,  as  Morris  wrote  home, 
the  government,  while  all-powerful  in  certain 
cases,  was  in  others  not  merely  feeble,  but  en 
slaved,  and  was  often  obliged  to  commit  acts  the 
consequences  of  which  the  nominal  leaders  both 
saw  and  lamented.  Morris  also,  while  doing 
all  he  could  for  his  fellow-citizens,  was  often 
obliged  to  choose  between  their  interests  and 
those  of  the  nation  at  large  ;  and  he  of  course 
decided  in  favor  of  the  latter,  though  well 
aware  of  the  clamor  that  was  certain  to  be 
raised  against  him  in  consequence  by  those 
who,  as  he  caustically  remarked,  found  it  the 
easiest  thing  in  the  world  to  get  anything  they 
wanted  from  the  French  government  until  they 
had  tried. 

One  of  his  most  important  transactions  was 
in  reference  to  paying  off  the  debt  due  by 
America  for  amounts  loaned  her  during  the 
war  for  independence.  The  interest  and  a  part 
of  the  principal  had  already  been  paid.  At 
the  time  when  Morris  was  made  minister,  the 
United  States  had  a  large  sum  of  money,  des 
tined  for  the  payment  of  the  public  debt,  lying 
idle  in  the  hands  of  the  bankers  at  Amsterdam ; 
and  this  sum  both  Morris  and  the  American 


MINISTER   TO  FRANCE.  281 

minister  to  Holland,  Mr.  Short,  thought  could 
be  well  applied  to  the  payment  of  part  of  our 
remaining  obligation  to  France.  The  French 
government  was  consulted,  and  agreed  to  receive 
the  sum  ;  but  hardly  was  the  agreement  en 
tered  into  before  the  monarchy  was  overturned. 
The  question  at  once  arose  as  to  whether  the 
money  could  be  rightfully  paid  over  to  the  men 
who  had  put  themselves  at  the  head  of  affairs, 
and  who,  a  month  hence,  might  themselves  be 
ousted  by  others  who  would  not  acknowledge 
the  validity  of  a  payment  made  to  them.  Short 
thought  the  payment  should  be  stopped,  and,  as 
it  afterwards  turned  out,  the  home  authorities 
agreed  with^  him.  But  Morris  thought  other 
wise,  and  paid  over  the  amount.  Events  fully 
justified  his  course,  for  France  never  made 
any  difficulty  in  the  matter,  and  even  had  she 
done  so,  as  Morris  remarked,  America  had  the 
staff  in  her  own  hands,  and  could  walk  which 
way  she  pleased,  for  she  owed  more  money,  and 
in  the  final  adjustment  could  insist  on  the 
amount  paid  being  allowed  on  account  of  the 
debt. 

The  French  executive  council  owed  Morris 
gratitude  for  his  course  in  this  matter  ;  but  they 
became  intensely  irritated  with  him  shortly 
afterwards  because  he  refused  to  fall  in  with 
certain  proposals  they  made  to  him  as  to  the 


282  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

manner  of  applying  part  of  the  debt  to  the  pur 
chase  of  provisions  and  munitions  for  San  Do 
mingo.  Morris  had  good  reason  to  believe  that 
there  was  a  private  speculation  at  the  bottom  of 
this  proposal,  and  declined  to  accede  to  it.  The 
urgency  with  which  it  was  made,  and  the  wrath 
which  his  course  excited,  confirmed  his  suspi 
cions,  and  he  persisted  in  his  refusal  although 
it  almost  brought  about  a  break  with  the  men 
then  carrying  on  the  government.  Afterwards, 
when  these  men  fell  with  the  Gironde,  he 
wrote  home:  "I  mentioned  to  you  the  plan 
of  a  speculation  on  drafts  to  have  been  made 
on  the  United  States,  could  my  concurrence 
have  been  procured.  (  Events  have^  shown  that 
this  speculation  would  have  been  a  good  one  to 
the  parties,  who  would  have  gained  (and  the 
French  nation  of  course  have  lost)  about  fifty 
thousand  pounds  sterling  in  eighty  thousand. 
I  was  informed  at  that  time  that  the  disap 
pointed  parties  would  attempt  to  have  me 
recalled,  and  some  more  tractable  character 
sent,  who  would  have  the  good  sense  to  look 
after  his  own  interest.  Well,  sir,  nine  months 
have  elapsed,  and  now,  if  I  were  capable  of 
such  things,  I  think  it  would  be  no  difficult 
matter  to  have  some  of  them  hanged ;  indeed 
it  is  highly  probable  that  they  will  experience 
a  fate  of  that  sort.'* 


MINISTER  TO  FRANCE.  283 

Much  of  his  time  was  also  taken  up  in  re 
monstrating  against  the  attacks  of  French 
privateers  on  American  shipping.  These,  how 
ever,  went  steadily  on  until,  half  a  dozen  years 
afterwards,  we  took  the  matter  into  our  own 
hands,  and  in  the  West  Indies  inflicted  a  smart 
drubbing,  not  only  on  the  privateers  of  France, 
but  on  her  regular  men-of-war  as  well.  He 
also  did  what  he  could  for  the  French  officers 
who  had  served  in  America  during  the  War  of 
Independence,  most  of  whom  were  forced  to  flee 
from  France  after  the  outbreak  of  the  Revolu 
tion. 

His  letters  home,  even  after  his  regular  du 
ties  had  begun  to  be  engrossing,  contained  a 
running  commentary  on  the  events  that  were 
passing  around  him.  His  forecasts  of  events 
within  France  were  remarkably  shrewd,  and 
he  displayed  a  wonderful  insight  into  the  mo 
tives  and  characters  of  the  various  leaders; 
but  at  first  he  was  all  at  sea  in  his  estimate 
of  the  military  situation,  being  much  more  at 
home  among  statesmen  than  soldiers.  He  had 
expected  the  allied  sovereigns  to  make  short 
work  of  the  raw  republican  armies,  and  was 
amazed  at  the  success  of  the  latter.  But  he 
very  soon  realized  how  the  situation  stood; 
that  whereas  the  Austrian  and  Prussian  troops 
simply  came  on  in  well-drilled,  reluctant  obedi- 


284  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

ence  to  their  commanding  officers,  the  soldiers 
of  France,  on  the  contrary,  were  actuated  by  a 
fiery  spirit  the  like  of  which  had  hardly  been 
seen  since  the  crusades.  The  bitterness  of 
the  contest  was  appalling,  and  so  was  the  way 
in  which  the  ranks  of  the  contestants  were 
thinned  out.  The  extreme  republicans  believed 
in  their  creed  with  a  furious  faith  ;  and  they 
were  joined  by  their  fellow  -  citizens  with  an 
almost  equal  zeal,  when  once  it  had  become 
evident  that  the  invaders  were  hostile  not  only 
to  the  Republic  but  to  France  itself,  and  very 
possibly  meditated  its  dismemberment. 

When  the  royal  and  imperial  forces  invaded 
France  in  1792,  they  threatened  such  ferocious 
vengeance  as  to  excite  the  most  desperate  resist 
ance,  and  yet  they  backed  up  their  high  sound 
ing  words  by  deeds  so  faulty,  weak,  and  slow 
as  to  make  themselves  objects  of  contempt 
rather  than  dread.  The  Duke  of  Brunswick 
in  particular,  as  a  prelude  to  some  very  harm 
less  military  manoeuvres,  issued  a  singularly 
lurid  and  foolish  manifesto,  announcing  that  he 
would  deliver  up  Paris  to  utter  destruction  and 
would  give  over  all  the  soldiers  he  captured  to 
military  execution.  Morris  said  that  his  ad 
dress  was  in  substance,  u  Be  all  against  me, 
for  I  am  opposed  to  you  all,  and  make  a  good 
resistance,  for  there  is  no  longer  any  hope  ;  "  and 


MINISTER  TO  FRANCE.  285 

added  that  it  would  have  been  wiser  to  have  be 
gun  with  some  great  success  and  then  to  have 
carried  the  danger  near  those  whom  it  was  de- 

O 

sired  to  intimidate.  As  it  was,  the  Duke's  cam 
paign  failed  ignominiously,  and  all  the  inva 
ders  were  driven  back,  for  France  rose  as  one 
man,  her  warriors  overflowed  on  every  side, 
and  bore  down  all  her  foes  by  sheer  weight 
of  numbers  and  impetuous  enthusiasm.  Her 
government  was  a  despotism  as  well  as  an  an 
archy  ;  it  was  as  totally  free  from  the  draw 
backs  as  from  the  advantages  of  the  demo 
cratic  system  that  it  professed  to  embody. 
Nothing  could  exceed  the  merciless  energy  of 
the  measures  adopted.  Half-way  wickedness 
might  have  failed  ;  but  a  wholesale  murder  of 
the  disaffected,  together  with  a  confiscation  of 
all  the  goods  of  the  rich,  and  a  vigorous  con 
scription  of  the  poor  for  soldiers,  secured  suc 
cess,  at  least  for  the  time  being.  The  French 
made  it  a  war  of  men ;  so  that  the  price  of  labor 
rose  enormously  at  once,  and  the  condition  of 
the  working  classes  forthwith  changed  greatly 
for  the  better — one  good  result  of  the  Revo 
lution,  at  any  rate. 

Morris  wrote  home  very  soon  after  the  10th 
of  August  that  the  then  triumphant  revolution 
ists,  the  Girondists  or  party  of  Brissot,  who  had 
supplanted  the  moderate  party  of  Lafayette  ex- 


286  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

actly  as  the  latter  had  succeeded  the  aristoc 
racy,  would  soon  in  their  turn  be  overthrown 
by  men  even  more  extreme  and  even  more 
bloodthirsty;  and  that  thus  it  would  go  on, 
wave  after  wave,  until  at  last  the  wizard  arose 
who  could  still  them.  By  the  end  of  the  year 
the  storm  had  brewed  long  enough  to  be  near 
the  bursting  point.  One  of  the  promoters  of 
the  last  outbreak,  now  himself  marked  as  a 
victim,  told  Morris  that  he  personally  would  die 
hard,  but  that  most  of  his  colleagues,  though 
like  him  doomed  to  destruction,  and  though  so 
fierce  in  dealing  with  the  moderate  men,  now 
showed  neither  the  nerve  nor  hardihood  that 
alone  could  stave  off  the  catastrophe. 

Meanwhile  the  king,  as  Morris  wrote  home, 
showed  in  his  death  a  better  spirit  ihg.ii  his 
life  had  promised  ;  for  he  died  in  a  manner 
becoming  his  dignity,  with  calm  courage,  pray 
ing  that  his  foes  might  be  forgiven  and  his 

deluded  people  be  benefited  by  his  death, his 

words  from  the  scaffold  being  drowned  by  the 
drums  of  Santerre.  As  a  whole,  the  Gironde 
had  opposed  putting  the  king  to  death,  and 
thus  capping  the  structure  whose  foundations 
they  had  laid;  they  held  back  all  too  late. 
The  fabric  of  their  system  was  erected  on  a 
quagmire,  and  it  now  settled  down  and  crushed 
the  men  who  had  built  it.  "  All  people  of  moral- 


MINISTER  TO  FRANCE.  287 

ity  and  intelligence  had  long  agreed  that  as  yet 
republican  virtues  were  not  of  Gallic  growth  ; " 
and  so  the  power  slipped  naturally  into  the 
grasp  of  the  lowest  and  most  violent,  of  those 
who  were  loudest  to  claim  the  possession  of 
republican  principles,  while  in  practice  show 
ing  that  they  had  not  even  the  dimmest  idea 
of  what  such  principles  meant. 

The  leaders  were  quite  at  the  mercy  of  the 
gusts  of  fierce  passion  that  swayed  the  breasts 
of  their  brutal  followers.  Morris  wrote  home 
that  the  nominal  rulers,  or  rather  the  few  by 
whom  these  rulers  were  directed,  had  finally 
gained  very  just  ideas  of  the  value  of  popular 
opinion  ;  but  that  they  were  not  in  a  condition 
to  act  according  to  their  knowledge ;  and  that  if 
they  were  able  to  reach  harbor  there  would  be 
quite  as  much  of  good  luck  as  of  good  manage 
ment  about  it,  and,  at  any  rate,  a  part  of  the 
crew  would  have  to  be  thrown  overboard. 

Then  the  Mountain  rose  under  Dan  ton  and 
Marat,  and  the  party  of  the  Gironde  was  en 
tirely  put  down.  The  leaders  were  cast  into 
prison,  with  the  certainty  before  their  eyes  that 
the  first  great  misfortune  to  France  would  call 
them  from  their  dungeons  to  act  as  expiatory 
victims.  The  Jacobins  ruled  supreme,  and  un 
der  them  the  government  became  a  despotism 
in  principle  as  well  as  in  practice.  Part  of  the 


288  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

Convention  arrested  the  rest;  and  the  revolu 
tionary  tribunals  ruled  red-handed,  with  a 
whimsical  and  ferocious  tyranny.  Said  Morris : 
"  It  is  an  emphatical  phrase  among  the  patriots 
that  terror  is  the  order  of  the  day  ;  some  years 
have  elapsed  since  Montesquieu  wrote  that  the 
principle  of  arbitrary  governments  is  fear." 
The  prisons  were  choked  with  suspects,  and 
blood  flowed  more  freely  than  ever.  Terror  had 
reached  its  highest  point.  Danton  was  soon  to 
fall  before  Robespierre.  Among  a  host  of  other 
victims  the  queen  died,  with  a  brave  dignity 
that  made  people  half  forget  her  manifold 
faults  ;  and  Philippe  Egalite,  the  dissolute  and 
unprincipled  scoundrel,  after  a  life  than  which 
none  could  be  meaner  and  more  unworthy,  now 
at  the  end  went  to  his  death  with  calm  and 
unflinching  courage. 

One  man  had  a  very  narrow  escape.  This 
was  Thomas  Paine,  the  Englishman,  who  had 
at  one  period  rendered  such  a  striking  ser 
vice  to  the  cause  of  American  independence, 
while  the  rest  of  his  life  had  been  as  ignoble  as 
it  was  varied.  He  had  been  elected  to  the  Con 
vention,  and,  havir.g  sided  with  the  Gironde,  was 
thrown  into  prison  by  the  Jacobins.  He  at 
once  asked  Morris  to  demand  him  as  an  Amer 
ican  citizen;  a  title  to  which  he  of  course  had 
no  claim.  Morris  refused  to  interfere  too 


MINISTER    TO  FRANCE.  289 

actively,  judging  rightly  that  Paine  would  be 
saved  by  his  own  insignificance  and  would  serve 
his  own  interests  best  by  keeping  still.  So  the 
filthy  little  atheist  had  to  stay  in  prison, 
"where  he  amused  himself  with  publishing  a 
pamphlet  against  Jesus  Christ."  There  are 
infidels  and  infidels ;  Paine  belonged  to  the  va 
riety  —  whereof  America  possesses  at  present 
one  or  two  shining  examples  —  that  apparently 
esteems  a  bladder  of  dirty  water  as  the  proper 
weapon  with  which  to  assail  Christianity.  It 
is  not  a  type  that  appeals  to  the  sympathy  of 
an  onlooker,  be  said  onlooker  religious  or  other 
wise. 

Morris  never  paid  so  much  heed  to  the  mili 
tary  events  as  to  the  progress  of  opinion  in 
France,  believing  "  that  such  a  great  country 
must  depend  more  upon  interior  sentiment  than 
exterior  operations."  He  took  a  half  melan 
choly,  half  sardonic  interest  in  the  overthrow  of 
the  Catholic  religion  by  the  revolutionists  ;  who 
had  assailed  it  with  the  true  French  weapon, 
ridicule,  but  ridicule  of  a  very  grim  and  un 
pleasant  kind.  The  people  who  five  years  be 
fore  had  fallen  down  in  the  dirt  as  the  conse 
crated  matter  passed  by,  now  danced  the  car 
magnole  in  holy  vestments,  and  took  part  in 
some  other  mummeries  a  great  deal  more 
blasphemous.  At  the  famous  Feast  of  Reason, 


290  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

which  Morris  described  as  a  kind  of  opera 
performed  in  Notre  Dame,  the  president  of  the 
Convention,  and  other  public  characters,  adored 
on  bended  knees. a  girl  who  stood  in  the  place 
ci-devant  most  holy  to  personate  Reason  her 
self.  This  girl,  Saunier  by  name,  followed  the 
trades  of  an  opera  dancer  and  harlot ;  she  was 
"  very  beautiful  and  next  door  to  an  idiot  as  to 
her  intellectual  gifts."  Among  her  feats  was 
having  appeared  in  a  ballet  in  a  dress  especially 
designed,  by  the  painter  David,  at  her  bidding, 
to  be  more  indecent  than  nakedness.  Alto 
gether  she  was  admirably  fitted,  both  morally 
and  mentally,  to  personify  the  kind  of  reason 
shown  and  admired  by  the  French  revolution 
ists. 

Writing  to  a  friend  who  was  especially  hos 
tile  to  Romanism,  Morris  once  remarked,  with 
the  humor  that  tinged  even  his  most  serious 
thoughts,  "Every  day  of  my  life  gives  me  rea 
son  to  question  my  own  infallibility  ;  and  of 
course  leads  me  further  from  confiding  in  that 
of  the  pope.  But  I  have  lived  to  see  a  new  re 
ligion  arise.  It  consists  in  a  denial  of  all  reli 
gion,  and  its  votaries  have  the  superstition  of 
not  being  superstitious.  They  have  this  with 
as  much  zeal  as  any  other  sect,  and  are  as 
ready  to  lay  waste  the  world  in  order  to  make 
proselytes."  Another  time,  speaking  of  his  conn- 


MINISTER  TO  FRANCE.  291 

try  place  at  Sainport,  to  which  he  had  retired 
from  Paris,  he  wrote :  "  We  are  so  scorched  by 
a  long  drought  that  in  spite  of  all  philosophic 
notions  we  are  beginning  our  procession  to  ob 
tain  the  favor  of  the  Ion  dieu.  Were  it  proper 
for  un  homme  public  et  protest ant  to  interfere,  I 
should  be  tempted  to  tell  them  that  mercy  is 
before  sacrifice."  Those  individuals  of  arrested 
mental  development  who  now  make  pilgrim 
ages  to  our  Lady  of  Lourdes  had  plenty  of 
prototypes,  even  in  the  atheistical  France  of 
the  Revolution. 

In  his  letters  home  Morris  occasionally  made 
clear-headed  comments  on  American  affairs. 
He  considered  that  "  we  should  be  unwise  in  the 
extreme  to  involve  ourselves  in  the  contests  of 
European  nations,  where  our  weight  could  be 
but  small,  though  the  loss  to  ourselves  would 
be  certain.  We  ought  to  be  extremely  watch 
ful  of  foreign  affairs,  but  there  is  a  broad  line 
between  vigilance  and  activity."  Both  France 
and  England  had  violated  their  treaties  with 
us  ;  but  the  latter  "  had  behaved  worst,  and  with 
deliberate  intention."  He  especially  laid  stress 
upon  the  need  of  our  having  a  navy;  "with 
twenty  ships  of  the  line  at  sea  no  nation  on 
earth  will  dare  to  insult  us;  "  even  aside  from 
individual  losses,  five  years  of  war  would  involve 
more  national  expense  than  the  support  of  a 


292  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

navy  for  twenty  years,  and  until  we  rendered 
ourselves  respectable,  we  should  continue  to  be 
insulted.  He  never  showed  greater  wisdom 
than  in  his  views  about  our  navy ;  and  his  party, 
the  federalists,  started  to  give  us  one  ;  but  it 
had  hardly  been  began  before  the  Jeffersoniuns 
came  into  power,  and,  with  singular  foolishness, 
stopped  the  work. 

Washington  heartily  sympathized  with  Mor 
ris's  views  as  to  the  French  Revolution  ;  he 
wrote  him  that  events  had  more  than  made 
good  his  gloomiest  predictions.  Jefferson,  how 
ever,  was  utterly  opposed  to  his  theories,  and 
was  much  annoyed  at  the  forcible  way  in  which 
he  painted  things  as  they  were ;  characteristi 
cally  enough,  he  only  showed  his  annoyance  by 
indirect  methods,  —  leaving  Morris's  letters  un 
answered,  keeping  him  in  the  dark  as  to  events 
at  home,  etc.  Morris  understood  all  this  per 
fectly,  and  was  extremely  relieved  when  Ran 
dolph  became  secretary  of  state  in  Jefferson's 
stead.  Almost  immediately  afterwards,  how 
ever,  he  was  himself  recalled.  The  United 
States,  having  requested  the  French  government 
to  withdraw  Genet,  a  harlequin  rather  than  a 
diplomat,  it  was  done  at  once,  and  in  return  a 
request  was  forwarded  that  the  United  States 
would  reciprocate  by  relieving  Morris,  which  of 
course  had  to  be  done  also.  The  revolutionary 


MINISTER  TO  FRANCE.  293 

authorities  both  feared  and  disliked  Morris ;  he 
could  neither  be  flattered  nor  bullied,  and  he 
was  known  to  disapprove  of  their  excesses. 
They  also  took  umbrage  at  his  haughtiness  ;  an 
unfortunate  expression  he  used  in  one  of  his 
official  letters  to  them,  "  nia  cour,"  gave  great 
oft'ense,  as  being  unrepublican  —  precisely  as 
they  had  previously  objected  to  Washington's 
using  the  phrase  u  your  people  "  in  writing  to 
the  king. 

Washington  wrote  him  a  letter  warmly  ap 
proving  of  his  past  conduct.  Nevertheless 
Morris  was  not  over-pleased  at  being  recalled. 
He  thought  that,  as  things  then  were  in  France, 
any  minister  who  gave  satisfaction  to  its  gov 
ernment  would  prove  forgetful  of  the  interests 
of  America.  He  was  probably  right;  at  any 
rate,  what  he  feared  was  just  what  happened 
under  his  successor,  Monroe  —  a  very  amiable 
gentleman,  but  distinctly  one  who  comes  in  the 
category  of  those  whose  greatness  is  thrust  upon 
them.  However,  under  the  circumstances,  it 
was  probably  impossible  for  our  government  to 
avoid  recalling  Morris. 

He  could  say  truthfully  :  "  I  have  the  conso 
lation  to  have  made  no  sacrifice  either  of  per 
sonal  or  national  dignity,  and  I  believe  I  should 
have  obtained  everything  if  the  American  gov 
ernment  had  refused  to  recall  me."  His  ser- 


294  GODVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

vices  had  been  invaluable  to  us ;  he  had  kept 
our  national  reputation  at  a  high  point,  by  the 
scrupulous  heed  with  which  he  saw  that  all  our 
obligations  were  fulfilled,  as  well  as  by  the  firm 
courage  with  which  he  insisted  on  our  rights 
being  granted  us.  He  believed  '•  that  all  our 
treaties,  however  onerous,  must  be  strictly  ful 
filled  according  to  their  true  intent  and  meaning. 
The  honest  nation  is  that  which,  like  the  honest 
man,  '  hath  to  its  plighted  faith  and  vow  for 
ever  firmly  stood,  and  though  it  promise  to  its 
loss,  yet  makes  that  promise  good  ; '  "  and  in 
return  he  demanded  that  others  should  mete  to 
us  the  same  justice  we  meted  to  them.  He  met 
each  difficulty  the  instant  it  arose,  ever  on  the 
alert  to  protect  his  country  and  his  countrymen  ; 
and  what  an  ordinary  diplomat  could  barely 
have  done  in  time  of  peace,  he  succeeded  in 
doing  amid  the  wild,  shifting  tumult  of  the  Re 
volution,  when  almost  every  step  he  made  was  at 
his  own  personal  hazard.  He  took  precisely  the 
right  stand;  had  he  taken  too  hostile  a  position, 
he  would  have  been  driven  from  the  country, 
whereas  had  he  been  a  sympathizer,  he  would 
have  more  or  less  compromised  America,  as  his 
successor  afterwards  did.  We  have  never  had 
a  foreign  minister  who  deserved  morejjpnor 
Jjian  Morris. 

One  of  the  noteworthy  features  in  his  letters 


MINISTER  TO  FRANCE.  295 

home  was  the  accuracy  with  which  he  foretold 
the  course  of  events  in  the  political  world.  Lu- 
zerne  once  said~to  him,  "  Vous  dites  toujours  les 
choses  extraordinaires  qui  se  realisent  ;  "  and 
many  other  men,  after  some  given  event  had 
taken  place,  were  obliged  to  confess  their  won 
der  at  the  way  in  which  Morris's  predictions 
concerning  it  had  been  verified.  A  notable  in 
stance  was  his  writing  to  Washington:  "  What 
ever  may  be  the  lot  of  France  in  remote  futu 
rity  ...  it  seems  evident  that  she  must  soon 
be  governed  by  a  single  despot.  Whether  she 
will  pass  to  that  point  through  the  medium  of 
a  triumvirate  or  other  small  body  of  men,  seems 
as  yet  undetermined.  I  think  it  most  probable 
that  she  will."  This  was  certainly  a  remarka 
bly  accurate  forecast  as  to  the  precise  stages  by 
which  the  already  existing  despotism  was  to  be 
concentrated  in  a  single  individual.  He  always 
insisted  that,  though  it  was  difficult  to  foretell 
how  a  single  man  would  act,  yet  it  was  easy 
with  regard  to  a  mass  of  men,  for  their  pecu 
liarities  neutralized  each  other,  and  it  was  ne 
cessary  only  to  pay  heed  to  the  instincts  of  the 
average  animal.  He  also  ga.ve  wonderfully 
clear-cut  sketches  of  the  more  prominent  actors 
in  affairs ;  although  one  of  his  maxims  was  that 
"in  examining  historical  facts  we  are  too  apt 
to  ascribe  to  individuals  the  events  which  are 


296  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

produced  by  general  causes."  Danton,  for  in 
stance,  he  described  as  always  believing,  and, 
what  was  worse  for  himself,  maintaining,  that 
a  popular  system  of  government  was  absurd  in 
France  ;  that  the  people  were  too  ignorant,  too 
inconstant,  too  corrupt,  and  felt  too  much  the 
need  of  a  master ;  in  short,  that  they  had 
reached  the  point  where  Cato  was  a  madman, 
and  Caesar  a  necessary  evil.  He  acted  on  these 
principles  ;  but  he  was  too  voluptuous  for  his 
ambition,  too  indolent  to  acquire  supreme 
power,  and  he  cared  for  great  wealth  rather 
than  great  fame ;  so  he  "  fell  at  the  feet  of 
Robespierre."  Similarly,  said  Morris,  there 
passed  away  all  the  men  of  the  10th  of  August, 
all  the  men  of  the  2d  of  September;  the  same 
mob  that  hounded  them  on  with  wild  applause 
when  they  grasped  the  blood-stained  reins  of 
power,  a  few  months  later  hooted  at  them  with 
ferocious  derision  as  they  went  their  way  to  the 
guillotine.  Paris  ruled  France,  and  the  sans 
culottes  ruled  Paris  ;  factions  continually  arose, 
waging  inexplicable  war,  each  in  turn  acquiring 
a  momentary  influence  which  was  founded  on 
fear  alone,  and  all  alike  unable  to  build  up  any 
stable  or  lasting  government. 

Each  new  stroke  of  the  guillotine  weak 
ened  the  force  of  liberal  sentiment,  and  di 
minished  the  chances  of  a  free  system.  Mor- 


MINISTER  TO  FRANCE.  297 

ris  wondered  only  thr>t,  in  a  country  ripe  for  a 
tyrant's  rule,  four  years  of  convulsions  among 
twenty-four  millions  of  people  had  brought 
forth  neither  a  soldier  nor  yet  a  statesman, 
whose  head  was  fitted  to  wear  the  cap  that  for 
tune  had  woven.  Despising  the  mob  as  utterly 
as  did  Oliver  Cromwell  himself,  and  realizing 
the  supine  indifference  with  which  the  French 
people  were  willing  to  accept  a  master,  he  yet 
did  full  justice  to  the  pride  with  which  they  re 
sented  outside  attack,  and  the  enthusiasm  with 
which  they  faced  their  foes.  He  saw  the  im 
mense  resources  possessed  by  a  nation  to  whom 

r  f  J 

war  abroad  was  a  necessity  for  the  preservation 
of  peace  at  home,  and  with  whom  bankruptcy 
was  but  a  starting-point  for  fresh  efforts.  The 
whole  energy  and  power  lat  in  the  hands  of  the 
revolutionists ;  the  men  of  the  old  regime  had 
fled,  leaving  only  that  '*  waxen  substance,"  the 
propertied  class,  "  who  in  foreign  wars  count  so 
much,  and  in  civil  wars  so  little."  He  had  no 
patience  with  those  despicable  beings,  the  trad 
ers  and  merchants  who  have  forgotten  how  to 
fight,  the  rich  who  are  too  timid  to  guard  their 
wealth,  the  men  of  property,  large  or  small, 
who  need  peace,  and  yet  have  not  the  sense  and 
courage  to  be  always  prepared  to  conquer  it. 

In  his  whole  attitude  towards  the  Revolution, 
Morris  represents  better  than  any  other  man 


298  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

the  clear-lieaded,  practical  statesman,  who  is 
genuinely  devoted  to  the  cause  of  constitutional 
freedom.  He  was  utterly  opposed  to  the  old 
system  of  privilege  on  the  one  hand,  and  to  the 
wild  excesses  of  the  fanatics  on  the  other.  The 
few  liberals  of  the  Revolution  were  the  only 
men  in  it  who  deserve  our  true  respect.  The 
republicans  who  champion  the  deeds  of  the 
Jacobins,  are  traitors  to  their  own  principles  ; 
for  the  spirit  of  Jacobinism,  instead  of  being 
identical  with,  is  diametrically  opposed  to  the 
spirit  of  true  liberty.  Jacobinism,  socialism, 
communism,  nihilism,  and  anarchism  —  these 
are  the  real  foes  of  a  democratic  republic,  for 
each  one,  if  it  obtains  control,  obtains  it  only 
as  the  sure  forerunner  of  a  despotic  tyranny 
and  of  some  form  of  the  one-man  power. 

Morris,  an  American,  took  a  clearer  and  truer 
view  of  the  French  Revolution  than  did  any  of 
the  contemporary  European  observers.  Yet 
while  with  them  it  was  the  all-absorbing  event 
of  the  age,  with  him,  as  is  evident  by  his  writ 
ings,  it  was  merely  an  important  episode  ;  for 
to  him  it  was  dwarfed  by  the  American  Revo 
lution  of  a  decade  or  two  back.  To  the  Euro 
peans  of  the  present  day,  as  yet  hardly  awake 
to  the  fact  that  already  the  change  has  begun 
that  will  make  Europe  but  a  fragment,  instead 
of  the  whole,  of  the  civilized  world,  the  French 


MINISTER    TO  FRANCE.  299 

Revolution  is  the  great  historical  event  of  our 
times.  But  in  reality  it  affected  only  the  peo 
ple  of  western  and  central  Europe ;  not  the 
Russians,  not  the  English-speaking  nations,  not 
the  Spaniards  who  dwelt  across  the  Atlantic. 
America  and  Australia  had  their  destinies 
moulded  by  the  crisis  of  1776,  not  by  the  crisis 
of  1789.  What  the  French  Revolution  was  to 
the  states  within  Europe,  that  the  American 
Revolution  was  to  the  continents  without. 


CHAPTER  XL 

STAY  IK   EUROPE. 

MONROE,  as  Morris's  successor,  entered  upon 
his  new  duties  with  an  immense  flourish,  and 
rapidly  gave  a  succession  of  startling  proofs  that 
he  was  a  minister  altogether  too  much  to  the 
taste  of  the  frenzied  Jacobinical  republicans  to 
whom  he  was  accredited.  Indeed,  his  capers 
were  almost  as  extraordinary  as  their  own,  and 
seem  rather  like  the  antics  of  some  of  the  early 
French  commanders  in  Canada,  in  their  efforts 
to  ingratiate  themselves  with  their  Indian  allies, 
than  like  the  performance  we  should  expect 
from  a  sober  Virginian  gentleman  on  a  mission 
to  a  civilized  nation.  He  stayed  long  enough 
to  get  our  affairs  into  a  snarl,  and  was  then 
recalled  by  Washington,  receiving  from  the 
latter  more  than  one  scathing  rebuke. 

However,  the  fault  was  really  less  with  him 
than  with  his  party  and  with  those  who  sent 
him.  Monroe  was  an  honorable  man  with  a 
very  un-original  mind,  and  he  simply  reflected 
the  wild,  foolish  views  held  by  all  his  fellows 


STAY  IN  EUROPE.  301 

of  the  Jeffersonian  democratic  -  republican 
school  concerning  France  —  for  our  politics 
were  still  French  and  English,  but  not  yet 
American.  His  appointment  was  an  excellent 
example  of  the  folly  of  trying  to  carry  on  a 
government  on  a  "  non-partisan  "  basis.  Wash 
ington  was  only  gradually  weaned  from  this 
theory  by  bitter  experience  ;  both  Jefferson 
and  Monroe  helped  to  teach  him  the  lesson.  It 
goes  without  saying  that  in  a  well-ordered  gov 
ernment  the  great  bulk  of  the  employees  in  the 
civil  service,  the  men  whose  functions  are  mere 
ly  to  execute  faithfully  routine  departmental 
work,  should  hold  office  during  good  behavior, 
and  should  be  appointed  without  reference  to 
their  politics  ;  but  if  the  higher  public  servants, 
such  as  the  heads  of  departments  and  the  for 
eign  ministers,  are  not  in  complete  accord  with 
their  chief,  the  only  result  can  be  to  introduce 
halting  indecision  and  vacillation  into  the  coun 
sels  of  the  nation,  without  gaining  a  single  com 
pensating  advantage,  and  without  abating  by 
one  iota  the  virulence  of  party  passion.  To 
appoint  Monroe,  an  extreme  Democrat,  to 
France,  while  at  the  same  time  appointing  Jay, 
a  strong  Federalist,  to  England,  was  not  only 
an  absurdity  which  did  nothing  towards  recon 
ciling  the  Federalists  and  Democrats,  but,  bear 
ing  in  mind  how  these  parties  stood  respectively 


302  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS, 

towards  England  and  France,  it  was  also  an 
actual  wrong,  for  it  made  our  foreign  policy 
seem  double-faced  and  deceitful.  While  one 
minister  was  formally  embracing  such  of  the 
Parisian  statesmen  as  had  hitherto  escaped 
the  guillotine,  and  was  going  through  various 
other  theatrical  performances  that  do  not  ap 
peal  to  any  but  a  Gallic  mind,  his  fellow  was 
engaged  in  negotiating  a  treaty  in  England  that 
was  so  obnoxious  to  France  as  almost  to  bring 
us  to  a  rupture  with  her.  The  Jay  treaty  was 
not  altogether  a  good  one,  and  a  better  might 
perhaps  have  been  secured ;  still,  it  was  better 
than  nothing,  and  Washington  was  right  in 
urging  its  adoption,  even  while  admitting  that 
it  was  not  entirely  satisfactory.  But  certainly, 
if  we  intended  to  enter  into  such  engagements 
with  Great  Britain,  it  was  rank  injustice  to 
both  Monroe  and  France  to  send  such  a  man 
as  the  former  to  such  a  country  as  the  latter. 

Meanwhile  Morris,  instead  of  returning  to 
America,  was  forced  by  his  business  affairs  to 
prolong  his  stay  abroad  for  several  years. 
During  this  time  he  journeyed  at  intervals 
through  England,  the  Netherlands,  Germany, 
Prussia,  and  Austria.  His  European  reputation 
was  well  established,  and  he  was  everywhere 
received  gladly  into  the  most  distinguished 
society  of  the  time.  What  made  him  especially 


STAY  IN  EUROPE.  303 

welcome  was  his  having  now  definitely  taken 
sides  with  the  anti-revolutionists  in  the  great 
conflict  of  arms  and  opinions  then  raging 
through  Europe  ;  and  his  brilliancy,  the  bold 
ness  with  which  he  had  behaved  as  minister 
during  the  Terror,  and  the  reputation  given  him 
by  the  French  emigres,  all  joined  to  cause  him 
to  be  hailed  with  pleasure  by  the  aristocratic 
party.  It  is  really  curious  to  see  the  consider 
ation  with  which  he  was  everywhere  treated, 
although  again  a  mere  private  individual,  and 
the  terms  of  intimacy  on  which  he  was  admitted 
into  the  most  exclusive  social  and  diplomatic 
circles  at  the  various  courts.  He  thus  became 
an  intimate  friend  of  many  of  the  foremost 
people  of  the  period.  His  political  observation, 
however,  became  less  trustworthy  than  hereto 
fore  ;  for  he  was  undoubtedly  soured  by  his 
removal,  and  the  excesses  of  the  revolutionists 
had  excited  such  horror  in  his  mind  as  to  make 
him  no  longer  an  impartial  judge.  His  fore 
casts  and  judgments  on  the  military  situation 
in  particular,  although  occasionally  right,  were 
usually  very  wild.  He  fully  appreciated  Napo 
leon's  utter  unscrupulousness  and  marvelous 
mendacity;  but  to  the  end  of  his  life  he  re 
mained  unwilling  to  do  justice  to  the  emperor's 
still  more  remarkable  warlike  genius,  going  so 
far,  after  the  final  Russian  campaign,  as  to 


304  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

speak  of  old  Kutusoff  as  his  equal.  Indeed,  in 
spite  of  one  or  two  exceptions, —  notably  his 
predicting  almost  the  exact  date  of  the  retreat 
from  Moscow,  —  his  criticisms  on  Napoleon's 
military  operations  do  not  usually  stand  much 
above  the  rather  ludicrous  level  recently  reached 
by  Count  Tolstoi. 

Morris  was  relieved  by  Monroe  in  August, 
1794,  and  left  Paris  for  Switzerland  in  October. 
He  stopped  at  Coppet  and  spent  a  day  with 
Madame  de  Stael,  where  there  was  a  little 
French  society  that  lived  at  her  expense  and  was 
as  gay  as  circumstances  would  permit.  He  had 
never  been  particularly  impressed  with  the  much 
vaunted  society  of  the  salon,  and  this  small  sur 
vival  thereof  certainly  had  no  overpowering  at 
traction  for  him,  if  we  may  judge  by  the  entry 
in  his  diary  :  "  The  road  to  her  house  is  up-hill 
and  execrable,  and  I  think  I  shall  not  again  go 
thither."  Mankind  was  still  blind  to  the  grand 
beauty  of  the  Alps, — it  must  be  remembered 
that  the  admiration  of  mountain  scenery  is,  to 
the  shame  of  our  forefathers  be  it  said,  almost 
a  growth  of  the  present  century,  —  and  Morris 
took  more  interest  in  the  Swiss  population  than 
in  their  surroundings.  He  wrote  that  in  Switz 
erland  the  spirit  of  commerce  had  brought 
about  a  baseness  of  morals  which  nothing  could 
cure  but  the  same  spirit  carried  still  further:  — 


STAY  IN  EUROPE.  305 

"  It  teaches  eventually  fair  dealing  as  the  most 
profitable  dealing.  The  first  lesson  of  trade  is, 
My  son,  get  money.  The  second  is,  My  son, 
get  money,  honestly  if  you  can,  but  get  money. 
The  third  is,  My  son,  get  money ;  but  honestly, 
if  you  would  get  much  money." 

He  went  to  Great  Britain  in  the  following 
summer,  and  spent  a  year  there.  At  one  time 
he  visited  the  North,  staying  with  the  Dukes 
of  Argyle,  Atholl  and  Montrose,  and  was  very 
much  pleased  with  Scotland,  where  everything 
he  saw  convinced  him  that  the  country  was 
certain  of  a  rapid  and  vigorous  growth.  On 
his  return  he  stopped  with  the  Bishop  of  Lan- 
daff,  at  Colgate  Park.  The  bishop  announced 
that  he  was  a  stanch  opposition  man,  and  a 
firm  whig;  to  which  statement  Morris  adds  in 
his  diary  :  "  Let  this  be  as  it  will,  he  is  certainly 
a  good  landlord  and  a  man  of  genius." 

But  Morris  was  now  a  favored  guest  in  min 
isterial,  even  more  than  in  opposition  circles  ; 
he  was  considered  to  belong  to  what  the  czar 
afterwards  christened  the  "  parti  sain  de  TEu- 
rope."  He  saw  a  good  deal  of  both  Pitt  and 
Grenville,  and  was  consulted  by  them  not  only 
about  American,  but  also  about  European 
affairs  ;  and  a  number  of  favors,  which  he  asked 
for  some  of  his  friends  among  the  emigres,  were 
granted.  All  his  visits  were  not  on  business, 


306  GOVVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

however ;  as,  for  instance,  on  July  14th  : 
"  Dine-  at  Mr.  Pitt's.  We  sit  down  at  six. 
Lords  Grenville,  Chatham,  and  another  come 
later.  The  rule  is  established  for  six  precisely, 
which  is  right,  I  think.  The  nvines  are  good 
arid  the  conversation  flippant."  Morris  helped 
Grenville  in  a  number  of  ways,  at  the  Prussian 
court  for  instance  ;  and  was  even  induced  by 
him  to  write  a  letter  to  Washington,  attempting 
to  put  the  English  attitude  toward  us  in  a 
good  light.  Washington,  however,  was  no 
more  to  be  carried  off  his  feet  in  favor  of  the 
English  than  against  them  ;  and  the  facts  he 
brought  out  in  his  reply  showed  that  Morris 
had  rather  lost  his  poise,  and  had  been  hurried 
into  an  action  that  was  ill  advised.  He  was 
quite  Often  at  court ;  and  relates  a  conversa 
tion  with  the  king,  wherein  that  monarch's 
language  seems  to  have  been  much  such  as  tra 
dition  assigns  him  —  short,  abrupt  sentences, 
repetitions,  and  the  frequent  use  of  "  what." 

He  also  saw  a  good  deal  of  the  royalist  refu 
gees.  Some  of  them  he  liked  and  was  intimate 
with;  but  the  majority  disgusted  him  and  made 
him  utterly  impatient  with  their  rancorous 
folly.  He  commented  on  the  strange  levity 
and  wild  negotiations  of  the  Count  d'Artois, 
and  prophesied  that  his  character  was  such  as 
to  make  his  projected  attempt  on  La  Vende'e 


STAY  IN  EUROPE.  307 

hopeless  from  the  start.  Another  day  he  was 
at  the  Marquis  de  Spinola's :  "  The  conversation 
here,  where  our  company  consists  of  aristocrats 
of  the  first  feather,  turns  on  French  affairs. 
They,  at  first,  agree  that  union  among  the 
French  is  necessary.  But  when  they  come  to 
particulars,  they  fly  off  and  are  mad.  Madame 
Spinola  would  send  the  Duke  of  Orleans  to 
Siberia.  An  abbe,  a  young  man,  talks  much 
and  loud,  to  show  his  esprit ;  and  to  hear  them 
one  would  suppose  they  were  quite  at  their  ease 
in  a  petit  souper  de  Paris"  Of  that  ponderous 
exile,  the  chief  of  the  House  of  Bourbon,  and 
afterwards  Louis  XVIII,  he  said  that,  in  his 
opinion,  he  had  nothing  to  do  but  to  try  to  get 
shot,  thereby  redeeming  by  valor  the  foregone 
follies  of  his  conduct. 

In  June,  1796,  Morris  returned  to  the  conti 
nent,  and  started  on  another  tour,  in  his  own 
carriage  ;  having  spent  some  time  himself  in 
breaking  in  his  young  and  restive  horses  to 
their  task.  He  visited  all  the  different  capitals, 
atone  time  or  another;  among  them,  Berlin, 
where,  as  usual,  he  was  very  well  received. 
For  all  his  horror  of  Jacobinism,  Morris  was 
a  thorough  American,  perfectly  independent, 
without  a  particle  of  the  snob  in  his  disposition, 
and  valuing  his  acquaintances  for  what  they 
were,  not  for  their  titles.  In  his  diary  he  puts  N 


808  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

down  the  Queen  of  England  as  "  a  well-bred, 
sensible  woman,"  and  the  Empress  of  Austria 
as  "a  good  sort  of  little  woman,"  and  contemp 
tuously  dismisses  the  Prussian  king  with  a  word, 
precisely  as  he  does  with  any  one  else.  One 
of  the  entries  in  his  journal,  wliile  he  was  stay 
ing  in  Berlin,  offers  a  case  in  point.  "July  23d, 
I  dine,  very  much  against  my  will,  with  Prince 
Ferdinand.  I  was  engaged  to  a  very  agreeable 
party,  but  it  seems  the  highnesses  must  never 
be  denied,  unless  it  be  from  indisposition.  I 
had,  however,  written  a  note  declining  the  in 
tended  honor ;  but  the  messenger,  upon  looking 
at  it,  for  it  was  a  letter  patent,  like  the  invita 
tion,  said  he  could  not  deliver  it;  that  nobody 
ever  refused  ;  all  of  which  I  was  informed  of 
after  he  was  gone.  On  consulting  I  found  that 
I  must  go  or  give  mortal  offense,  which  last  I 
have  no  inclination  to  do  ;  so  I  write  another 
note,  and  send  out  to  hunt  up  the  messenger. 
While  I  am  abroad  this  untoward  incident  is 
arranged,  and  of  course  I  am  at  Bellevue." 
While  at  court  on  one  occasion  he  met,  and 
took  a  great  fancy  to,  the  daughter  of  the  fa 
mous  Baroness  Riedesel ;  having  been  born  in 
the  United  States,  she  had  been  christened 
America. 

In  one  of  his  conversations  with  the  king, 
who  was  timid  and  hesitating,  Morris  told  him 


STAY  IN  EUROPE.  309 

that  the  Austrians  would  be  all  right  if  he 
would  only  lend  them  some  Prussian  generals 
—  a  remark  upon  which  Jena  and  Auerstadt 
later  on  offered  a  curious  commentary.  He  be 
came  very  impatient  with  the  king's  inability  to 
make  up  his  mind  ;  and  wrote  to  the  Duchess 
of  Cumberland  that  "  the  guardian  angel  of  the 
French  Republic  kept  him  lingering  on  this  side 
of  the  grave."  He  wrote  to  Lord  Grenville 
that  Prussia  was  "  seeking  little  things  by  little 
means,"  and  that  the  war  with  Poland  was  pop 
ular  "  because  the  moral  principles  of  a  Prus 
sian  go  to  the  possession  of  whatever  he  can 
acquire.  And  so  little  is  he  the  slave  of  what 
he  calls  vulgar  prejudice,  that,  give  him  oppor 
tunity  and  means,  and  he  will  spare  you  the 
trouble  of  finding  a  pretext.  This  liberality 
of  sentiment  greatly  facilitates  negotiation,  for 
it  is  not  necessary  to  clothe  propositions  in  hon 
est  and  decent  forms."  Morris  was  a  most  start 
ling  phenomenon  to  the  diplomatists  of  the  day, 
trampling  with  utter  disregard  on  all  their  he 
reditary  theories  of  finesse  and  cautious  duplic 
ity.  The  timid  formalists,  and  more  especially 
those  who  considered  double-dealing  as  the 
legitimate,  and  in  fact  the  only  legitimate, 
weapon  of  their  trade,  were  displeased  with 
him  ;  but  he  was  very  highly  thought  of  by 
such  as  could  see  the  strength  and  originality 


310  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

of  the  views  set  forth  in  his  frank,  rather  over 
bold  language. 

At  Dresden  he  notes  that  he  was  late  on  the 
day  set  down  for  his  presentation  at  court, 
owing  to  his  valet  having  translated  hall  zwolf 
as  half  past  twelve.  The  Dresden  picture  gal 
leries  were  the  first  that  drew  from  him  any 
very  strong  expressions  of  admiration.  In  the 
city  were  numbers  of  the  emigres^  fleeing  from 
their  countrymen,  and  only  permitted  to  stop 
in  Saxony  for  a  few  days ;  yet  they  v;ere  serene 
and  gay,  and  spent  their  time  in  busy  sight 
seeing,  examining  everything  curious  which 
they  could  get  at.  Morris  had  become  pretty 
well  accustomed  to  the  way  in  which  they  met 
fate  ;  but  such  lively  resignation  surprised  even 
him,  and  he  remarked  that  so  great  a  calamity 
had  never  lighted  on  shoulders  so  well  fitted  to 
bear  it. 

At  Vienna  he  made  a  long  stay,  not  leaving 
it  until  January,  1797.  Here,  as  usual,  .he  fra 
ternized  at  once  with  the  various  diplomatists ; 
the  English  ambassador,  Sir  Morton  Eden,  in 
particular,  going  out  of  his  way  to  show  him 
every  attention.  The  Austrian  prime  minis 
ter,  M.  Thugut,  was  also  very  polite  ;  and  so 
were  the  foreign  ministers  of  all  the  powers. 
He  was  soon  at  home  in  the  upper  social  circles 
of  this  German  Paris  ;  but  from  the  entries  in 


STAY  IN  EUROPE.  311 

his  journal  it  is  evident  that  he  thought  very 
little  of  Viennese  society.  He  liked  talking  and 
the  company  of  brilliant  conversationalists,  and 
he  abominated  gambling  ;  but  in  Vienna  eveiy 
one  was  so  devoted  to  play  that  there  was  no 
conversation  at  all.  He  considered  a  dumb 
circle  round  a  card- table  as  the  dullest  society 
in  the  world,  and  in  Vienna  there  was  little 
else.  Nor  was  he  impressed  with  the  ability 
of  the  statesmen  he  met.  He  thought  the  Aus 
trian  nobles  to  be  on  the  decline  ;  they  stood 
for  the  dying  feudal  system.  The  great  families 
had  been  squandering  their  riches  with  the 
most  reckless  extravagance,  and  were  becoming 
broken  and  impoverished ;  and  the  imperial 
government  was  glad  to  see  the  humiliation  of 
the  haughty  nobles,  not  perceiving  that,  if  pre 
served,  they  would  act  as  a  buffer  between  it 
and  the  new  power  beginning  to  make  itself 
felt  throughout  Europe,  and  would  save  the 
throne  if  not  from  total  overthrow,  at  least 
from  shocks  so  fierce  as  greatly  to  weaken  it. 

Morris  considered  Prince  Esterhazy  as  an 
archtypical  representative  of  the  class.  He  was 
captain  of  the  noble  Hungarian  Guard,  a  small 
body  of  tall,  handsome  men  on  fiery  steeds, 
magnificently  caparisoned.  The  Prince,  as  its 
commander,  wore  a  Hungarian  dress,  scarlet, 
with  fur  cape  and  cuffs,  and  yellow  morocco 


312  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

boots  ;  everything  embroidered  with  pearls, 
four  hundred  and  seventy  large  ones,  and  many 
thousand  small,  but  all  put  on  in  good  taste. 
He  had  a  collar  of  large  diamonds,  a  plume  of 
diamonds  in  his  cap  ;  and  his  sword-hilt,  scab 
bard,  and  spurs  were  inlaid  with  the  same 
precious  stones.  His  horse  was  equally  be- 
jeweled ;  steed  and  rider,  with  their  trappings, 
"  were  estimated  at  a  value  of  a  quarter  of  a 
million  dollars."  Old  Bliicher  would  surely 
have  considered  the  pair  "  very  fine  plunder." 

The  Prince  was  reported  to  be  nominally  the 
richest  subject  in  Europe,  with  a  revenue  that 
during  the  Turkish  war  went  up  to  a  million 
guilders  annually  ;  yet  he  was  hopelessly  in 
debt  already  and  getting  deeper  every  year. 
He  lived  in  great  magnificence,  but  was  by  no 
means  noted  for  lavish  hospitality ;  all  his  ex 
travagance  was  reserved  for  himself,  especially 
for  purposes  of  display.  His  Vienna  stable 
contained  a  hundred  and  fifty  horses  ;  and  dur 
ing  a  six  weeks'  residence  in  Frankfort,  where 
he  was  ambassador  at  the  time  of  an  imperial 
coronation,  he  spent  eighty  thousand  pounds. 
Altogether,  an  outsider  may  be  pardoned  for 
not  at  first  seeing  precisely  what  useful  function 
such  a  merely  gorgeous  being  performed  in  the 
body  politic  ;  yet  when  summoned  before  the 
bar  of  the  new  world-forces,  Esterhazy  and  his 


STAY  IN  EUROPE.  313 

kind  showed  that  birds  of  such  fine  feathers 
sometimes  had  beaks  and  talons  as  well,  and 
knew  how  to  use  them,  the  craven  flight  of  the 
French  noblesse  to  the  contrary  notwithstand 
ing. 

Morris  was  often  at  court,  where  the  con 
stant  theme  of  conversation  was  naturally  the 
struggle  with  the  French  armies  under  Moreau 
and  Bonaparte.  After  one  of  these  mornings 
he  mentions :  "  The  levee  was  oddly  arranged, 
all  the  males  being  in  one  apartment,  through 
which  the  Emperor  passes  in  going  to  chapel, 
and  returns  the  same  way  with  the  Empress 
and  imperial  family ;  after  which  they  go 
through  their  own  rooms  to  the  ladies  as 
sembled  on  the  other  side." 

The  English  members  of  the  Corps  Diplo 
matique  in  all  the  European  capitals  were  es 
pecially  civil  to  him  ;  and  he  liked  them  more 
than  their  continental  brethren.  But  for  some 
of  their  young  tourist  countrymen  he  cared 
'less  ;  and  it  is  curious  to  see  that  the  ridicule 
to  which  Americans  have  rightly  exposed  them 
selves  by  their  absurd  fondness  for  uniforms 
and  for  assuming  military  titles  to  which  they 
have  no  warrant,  was  no  less  deservedly  earned 
by  the  English  at  the  end  of  the  last  century. 
One  of  Morris's  friends,  Baron  Groshlaer,  being, 
like  the  other  Viennese,  curious  to  know  the 


814  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

object  of  his  stay,  —  they  guessed  aright  that 
he  wished  to  get  Lafayette  liberated,  —  at  last 
almost  asked  him  outright  about  it.  "  Finally 
I  tell  him  that  the  only  difference  between  me 
and  the  young  Englishmen,  of  whom  there  is 
a  swarm  here,  is,  that  I  seek  instruction  with 
gray  hairs  and  they  with  brown.  .  .  .  At  the 
Archduchess's  one  of  the  little  princes,  brother 
to  the  Emperor,  and  who  is  truly  an  arch-duke, 
asks  me  to  explain  to  him  the  different  uniforms 
worn  by  the  young  English,  of  whom  there  are 
a  great  number  here,  all  in  regimentals.  Some 
of  these  belong  to  no  corps  at  all,  and  the  others 
to  yeomanry,  fencibles  and  the  like,  all  of 
which  purport  to  be  raised  for  the  defense  of 
their  country  in  case  she  should  be  invaded;  but 
now,  when  the  invasion  seems  most  imminent, 
they  are  abroad,  and  cannot  be  made  to  feel 
the  ridiculous  indecency  of  appearing  in  regi 
mentals.  Sir  M.  Eden  and  others  have  given 
them  the  broadest  hints  without  the  least  effect. 
One  of  them  told  me  that  all  the  world  should 
not  laugh  him  out  of  his  regimentals.  I 
bowed.  ...  I  tell  the  prince  that  I  really  am 
not  able  to  answer  his  question,  but  that,  in 
general,  their  dresses  I  believe  are  worn  for 
convenience  in  traveling.  He  smiles  at  this. 
...  If  I  were  an  Englishman  I  should  be  hurt 
at  these  exhibitions,  and  as  it  is  I  am  sorry  for 


STAY  IN  EUROPE.  315 

them.  ...  I  find  that  here  they  assume  it  as 
unquestionable  that  the  young  men  of  England 
have  a  right  to  adjust  the  ceremonial  of 
Vienna.  The  political  relations  of  the  two 
countries  induce  the  good  company  here  to  treat 
them  with  politeness ;  but  nothing  prevents 
their  being  laughed  at,  as  I  found  the  other 
evening  at  Madame  de  Groshlaer's,  where  the 
young  women  as  well  as  the  girls  were  very 
merry  at  the  expense  of  these  young  men." 

After  leaving  Vienna  he  again  passed 
through  Berlin,  and  in  a  conversation  with  the 
king  he  foreshadowed  curiously  the  state  of 
politics  a  century  later,  and  showed  that  he 
thoroughly  appreciated  the  cause  that  would  in 
the  end  reconcile  the  traditional  enmity  of  the 
Hohenzollerns  and  Hapsburgs.  "  After  some 
trifling  things  I  tell  him  that  I  have  just  seen 
his  best  friend.  He  asks  who?  and,  to  his 
great  surprise,  I  reply,  the  Emperor.  He 
speaks  of  him  well  personally,  and  I  observe 
that  he  is  a  very  honest  young  man,  to  which 
his  Majesty  replies  by  asking,  "  Mais,  que 
pensez  vous  de  Thugut."  "  Quant  a  cela,  c'est 
une  autre  affaire,  sire."  I  had  stated  the  in 
terest,  which  makes  him  and  the  Emperor  good 
friends,  to  be  their  mutual  apprehensions  from 
Russia.  "  But  suppose  we  all  three  unite?" 
14  Ce  sera  un  diable  de  fricassee,  sire,  si  vous 
vous  mettez  tous  les  trois  a  casser  les  oeufs." 


316  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

At  Brunswick  he  was  received  with  great 
hospitality,  the  Duke,  and  particularly  the 
Duchess  Dowager,  the  King  of  England's 
sister,  treating  him  very  hospitably.  He  here 
saw  General  Riedesel,  with  whom  he  was 
most  friendly ;  the  general  in  the  course  of 
conversation  inveighed  bitterly  against  Bur- 
goyne.  He  went  to  Munich  also,  where  he  was 
received  on  a  very  intimate  footing  by  Count 
Rumford,  then  the  great  power  in  Bavaria, 
who  was  busily  engaged  in  doing  all  he  could 
to  better  the  condition  of  his  country.  Morris 
was  much  interested  in  his  reforms.  They 
were  certainly  needed ;  the  Count  told  his 
friend  that  on  assuming  the  reins  of  power,  the 
abuses  to  be  remedied  were  beyond  belief  — 
for  instance,  there  was  one  regiment  of  cavalry 
that  had  five  field  officers  and  only  three 
horses.  With  some  of  the  friends  that  Morris 
made  —  such  as  the  Duchess  of  Cumberland, 
the  Princess  de  la  Tour  et  Taxis  and  others  — 
he  corresponded  until  the  end  of  his  life. 

While  at  Vienna  he  again  did  all  he  could 
to  get  Lafayette  released  from  prison,  where 
his  wife  was  confined  with  him ;  but  in  vain. 
Madame  de  Lafayette's  sister,  the  Marquise  de 
Montagu,  and  Madame  de  Stael,  both  wrote 
him  the  most  urgent  appeals  to  do  what  he 
could  for  the  prisoners;  the  former  writing, 


STAY  IN  EUROPE.  317 

"  My  sister  is  in  danger  of  losing  the  life  you 
saved  in  the  prisons  of  Paris  .  .  .  has  not  he 
whom  Europe  numbers  among  those  citizens 
of  whom  North  America  ought  to  be  most 
proud,  has  not  he  the  right  to  make  himself 
heard  in  favor  of  a  citizen  of  the  United  States, 
and  of  a  wife,  whose  life  belongs  to  him,  since 
he  lias  preserved  it?"  Madame  de  Stael  felt 
the  most  genuine  grief  for  Lafayette,  and  very 
sincere  respect  for  Morris;  and  in  her  letters 
to  the  latter  she  displayed  both  sentiments  with 
a  lavish  exaggeration  that  hardly  seems  in  good 
taste.  If  Morris  had  needed  a  spur  the  letters 
would  have  supplied  it ;  but  the  task  was  an 
impossible  one,  and  Lafayette  was  not  released 
until  the  peace  in  1797,  when  he  was  turned 
over  to  the  American  consul  at  Hamburg,  in 
Morris's  presence. 

Morris  was  able  to  render  more  effectual  help 
to  an  individual  far  less  worthy  of  it  than  La 
fayette.  This  was  the  then  Duke  of  Orleans, 
afterwards  King  Louis  Philippe,  who  had  fled 
from  France  with  Dumouriez.  Morris's  old 
friend,  Madame  de  Flahaut,  appealed  to  him 
almost  hysterically  on  the  duke's  behalf  ;  and 
he  at  once  did  even  more  than  she  requested,-* 
giving  the  duke  money  wherewith  to  go  to 
America,  and  also  furnishing  him  with  unlimited 
credit  at  his  own  New  York  banker's,  during  his 


318  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

wanderings  in  the   United  States.     This  was 
done  for  the  sake  of  the  Duchess  of  Orleans, 
to  whom   Morris  was  devotedly  attached,  not 
for  the  sake  of  the  duke  himself.     The  latter 
knew  this  perfectly,  writing:  "Your  kindness 
is  a  blessing  I  owe  to  my  mother  and  to  our 
friend  "  (Madame  de  Flahaut).     The  bourgeois 
king  admirably  represented  the  meanest,  small 
est  side  of  the  bourgeois  character ;  he  was  not 
a  bad  man,    but  he  was  a  very  petty  and  con 
temptible  one  ;  had  he  been  bom  in  a  different 
station  of  life,  he  would  have  been  just  the  in 
dividual  to  take  a  prominent  part  in  local  tem 
perance   meetings,  while   he  sanded  the  sugar 
he  sold  in  his  corner  grocery.     His  treatment 
of  Morris's  loan  was  characteristic.     When  he 
came  into  his  rights  again,  at  the  Restoration, 
he  at  first  appeared  to  forget  his  debt  entirely, 
and  when  his  memory  was  jogged,  he  merely 
sent  Morris  the  original  sum,  without  a  word 
of  thanks  ;   whereupon  Morris,  rather  nettled, 
and  as  prompt  to  stand  up  for  his  rights  against 
a  man  in  prosperity  as  he  had  been  to  help  him 
when  in  adversity,  put  the  matter  in  the  hands 
of  his  lawyer,  through  whom  he  notified  Louis 
Philippe  that  if  the  affair  was  to  be  treated  on 
a  merely  business  basis,  it  should  then  be  treated 
in  a  strictly  business  way,  and  the  interest  for 
the  twenty  years  that  had  gone  by  should  be 


STAY  IN  EUROPE.  319 

forwarded  also.  This  was  accordingly  done, 
although  not  until  after  Morris's  death,  the  en 
tire  sura  refunded  being  seventy  thousand 
francs. 

Morris  brought  his  complicated  business  af 
fairs  in  Europe  to  a  close  in  1798,  and  sailed 
from  Hamburg  on  October  4th  of  that  year, 
reaching  New  York  after  an  exceedingly  tedi 
ous  and  disagreeable  voyage  of  eighty  days. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

SERVICE    IN    THE    UNITED    STATES    SENATE. 

MORRIS  was  very  warmly  greeted  on  his  re 
turn  ;  and  it  was  evident  that  the  length  of  his 
stay  abroad  had  in  nowise  made  him  lose 
ground  with  his  friends  at  home.  His  natural 
affiliations  were  all  with  the  Federalist  party, 
which  he  immediately  joined. 

During  the  year  1799  he  did  not  take  much 
part  in  politics,  as  he  was  occupied  in  getting 
his  business  affairs  in  order  and  in  putting  to 
rights  his  estates  at  Morrisania.  The  old  manor 
house  had  become  such  a  crazy,:  leaky  affair 
that  he  tore  it  down  and  built  a  new  one ;  a 
great,  roomy  building,  not  in  the  least  showy, 
but  solid,  comfortable,  and  in  perfect  taste  ; 
having,  across  the  tree-clad  hills  of  Westchester, 
a  superb  view  of  the  Sound,  with  its  jagged 
coast  and  capes  and  islands. 

Although  it  was  so  long  since  he  had  prac 
ticed  law,  he  was  shortly  engaged  in  a  very  im 
portant  case  that  was  argued  for  eight  days 
before  the  Court  of  Errors  in  Albany.  Few 


IN  THE   UNITED  STATES  SENATE.          321 

trials  in  the  State  of  New  York  have  ever 
brought  together  such  a  number  of  men  of  re 
markable  legal  ability ;  for  among  the  lawyers 
engaged  on  one  side  or  the  other  were  Morris, 
Hamilton,  Burr,  Robert  Livingstone,  and  Troup. 
There  were  some  sharp  passages  of  arms  :  and 
the  trial  of  wits  between  Morris  and  Hamilton 
in  particular  were  so  keen  as  to  cause  a  passing 
coolness. 

During  the  ten  years  that  had  gone  by  since 
Morris  sailed  for  Europe,  the  control  of  the 
national  government  had  been  in  the  hands  of 
the  Federalists  ;  when  he  returned,  party  bitter 
ness  was  at  the  highest  pitch,  for  the  Democrats 
were  preparing  to  make  the  final  push  for 
power  which  should  overthrow  and  ruin  their 
antagonists.  Four-fifths  of  the  talent,  ability, 
and  good  sense  of  the  country  were  to  be  found 
in  the  Federalist  ranks ;  for  the  Federalists 
had  held  their  own  so  far,  by  sheer  force  of 
courage  and  intellectual  vigor,  over  foes  in  real 
ity  more  numerous.  Their  great  prop  had  been 
Washington.  His  colossal  influence  was  to  the 
end  decisive  in  party  contests,  and  he  had  in 
fact,  although  hardly  in  name,  almost  entirely 
abandoned  his  early  attempts  at  non-partisan 
ship,  had  grown  to  distrust  Madison  as  he  long 
before  had  distrusted  Jefferson,  and  had  come 
into  constantly  closer  relations  with  their  ene- 


322  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

mies.  His  death  diminished  greatly  the  chances 
of  Federalist  success ;  there  were  two  other 
causes  at  work  that  destroyed  them  entirely. 

One  of  these  was  the  very  presence  in  the 
dominant  party  of  so  many  men  nearly  equal  in 
strong  will  and  great  intellectual  power  ;  their 
ambitions  and  theories  clashed  ;  even  the  lofti 
ness  of  their  aims,  and  their  disdain  of  every 
thing  small,  made  them  poor  politicians,  and 
with  Washington  out  of  the  way  there  was  no 
one  commander  to  overawe  the  rest  and  to  keep 
down  the  fierce  bickerings  constantly  arising 
among  them  ;  while  in  the  other  party  there 
was  a  single  leader,  Jefferson,  absolutely  with 
out  a  rival,  but  supported  by  a  host  of  sharp 
political  workers,  most  skillful  in  marshaling 
that  unwieldy  and  hitherto  disunited  host  of 
voters  who  were  inferior  in  intelligence  to  their 
fellows. 

The  second  cause  lay  deep  in  the  nature  of 
the  Federalist  organization  :  it  was  its  distrust 
of  the  people.  This  was  the  fatally  weak 
streak  in  Federalism.  In  a  government  such  as 
ours  it  was  a  foregone  conclusion  that  a  party 
which  did  not  believe  in  the  people  would 
sooner  or  later  be  thrown  from  power  unless 
there  was  an  armed  break-up  of  the  system. 
The  distrust  was  felt,  and  of  course  excited 
corresponding  and  intense  hostility.  Had  the 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  SENATE.    323 

Federalists  been  united,  and  had  they  freely 
trusted  in  the  people,  the  latter  would  have 
shown  that  the  trust  was  well  founded  ;  but 
there  was  no  hope  for  leaders  who  suspected 
each  other  and  feared  their  followers. 

Morris  landed  just  as  the  Federalist  reaction, 
brought  about  by  the  conduct  of  France,  had 
spent  itself,  —  thanks  partly  to  some  inoppor 
tune  pieces  of  insolence  from  England,  in 
which  country,  as  Morris  once  wrote  to  a  foreign 
friend,  "  on  a  toujours  le  bon  esprit  de  vouloir 
prendre  les  mouches  avec  du  vinaigre."  The 
famous  alien  and  sedition  laws  were  exciting 
great  disgust,  and  in  Virginia  and  Kentucky 
Jefferson  was  using  them  as  handles  wherewith 
to  guide  seditious  agitation — not  that  he  be 
lieved  in  sedition,  but  because  he  considered  it 
good  party  policy,  for  the  moment,  to  excite 
it.  The  parties  hated  each  other  with  rancor 
ous  virulence ;  the  newspapers  teemed  with  the 
foulest  abuse  of  public  men,  accusations  of 
financial  dishonesty  were  rife,  Washington  him 
self  not  being  spared,  and  the  most  scurrilous 
personalities  were  bandied  about  between  the 
different  editors.  The  Federalists  were  split 
into  two  factions,  one  following  the  President, 
Adams,  in  his  efforts  to  keep  peace  with  France, 
if  it  could  be  done  with  honor,  while  the  others, 
under  Hamilton's  lead,  wished  war  at  once. 


324  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

Pennsylvania!!  politics  were  already  very  low. 
The  leaders  who  had  taken  control  were  men  of 
mean  capacity  and  small  morality,  and  the 
State  was  not  only  becoming  rapidly  democratic 
but  was  also  drifting  along  in  a  disorganized, 
pseudo-jacobinical,  half  insurrectionary  kind  of 
way  that  would  have  boded  ill  for  its  future 
had  it  not  been  fettered  by  the  presence  of 
healthier  communities  round  about  it.  New 
England  was  the  only  part  of  the  community, 
excepting  Delaware,  where  Federalism  was  on 
a  perfectly  sound  footing ;  for  in  that  section 
there  was  no  caste  spirit,  the  leaders  and  their 
followers  were  thoroughly  in  touch,  and  all  the 
citizens,  shrewd,  thrifty,  independent,  were  used 
to  self-government,  and  fully  awake  to  the  fact 
that  honesty  and  order  are  the  prerequisites  of 
liberty.  Yet  even  here  Democracy  had  made 
some  inroads. 

South  of  the  Potomac  the  Federalists  had  lost 
ground  rapidly.  Virginia  was  still  a  battlefield; 
as  long  as  Washington  lived,  his  tremendous 
personal  influence  acted  as  a  brake  on  the  dem 
ocratic  advance,  and  the  state's  greatest  orator, 
Patrick  Henry,  had  halted  beside  the  grave  to 
denounce  the  seditious  schemes  of  the  disunion 
agitators  with  the  same  burning,  thrilling  elo 
quence  that,  thirty  years  before,  had  stirred  to 
their  depths  the  hearts  of  his  hearers  when  he 


IN  THE   UNITED  STATES  SENATE.         325 

bade  defiance  to  the  tyrannous  might  of  the 
British  king.  But  when  these  two  men  were 
dead,  Marshall,  —  though  destined,  as  chief  and 
controlling  influence  in  the  third  division  of  our 
governmental  system,  to  mould  the  whole  of 
that  system  on  the  lines  of  Federalist  thought, 
and  to  prove  that  a  sound  judiciary  could 
largely  affect  an  unsound  executive  and  legisla 
ture, —  even  Marshall  could  not,  single-handed, 
stem  the  current  that  had  gradually  gathered 
head.  Virginia  stands  easily  first  among  all 
our  commonwealths  for  the  statesmen  and  war 
riors  she  has  brought  forth;  and  it  is  note 
worthy  that  during  the  long  contest  between 
the  nationalists  and  separatists,  which  forms 
the  central  fact  in  our  history  for  the  first 
three  quarters  of  a  century  of  our  national  life, 
she  gave  leaders  to  both  sides  at  the  two  great 
crises :  Washington  and  Marshall  to  the  one, 
and  Jefferson  to  the  other,  when  the  question 
was  one  of  opinion  as  to  whether  the  Union 
should  be  built  up ;  and  when  the  appeal  to 
arms  was  made  to  tear  it  down,  Farragut  and 
Thomas  to  the  north,  Lee  and  Jackson  to  the 
south. 

There  was  one  eddy  in  the  tide  of  demo- 
c*ratic  success  that  flowed  so  strongly  to  the 
southward.  This  was  in  South  Carolina.  The 
fierce  little  Palmetto  state  has  always  been  a, 


326  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

free  lance  among  her  southern  sisters  ;  for 
instance,  though  usually  ultra-democratic,  she 
was  hostile  to  the  two  great  democratic  chiefs, 
Jefferson  and  Jackson,  though  both  were  from 
the  south.  At  the  time  that  Morris  came 
home,  the  brilliant  little  group  of  Federalist 
leaders  within  her  bounds,  headed  by  men  of 
national  renown  like  Pinckney  and  Harper, 
kept  her  true  to  Federalism  by  downright  force 
of  intellect  and  integrity ;  for  they  were  among 
the  purest  as  well  as  the  ablest  statesmen  of 
the  day. 

New  York  had  been  going  through  a  series 
of  bitter  party  contests  ;  any  one  examining  a 
file  of  papers  of  that  day  will  come  to  the  con 
clusion  that  party  spirit  was  even  more  violent 
and  unreasonable  then  than  now.  The  two 
great  Federalist  leaders,  Hamilton  and  Jay, 
stood  head  and  shoulders  above  all  their  demo 
cratic  competitors,  and  they  were  backed  by  the 
best  men  in  the  state,  like  Rufus  King,  Schuy- 
ler  and  others.  But,  though  as  orators  and 
statesmen  they  had  no  rivals,  they  were  very 
deficient  in  the  arts  of  political  management. 
Hamilton's  imperious  haughtiness  had  alienated 
the  powerful  family  of  the  Livingstones,  who 
had  thrown  in  their  lot  with  the  Clintonians ; 
and  a  still  more  valuable  ally  to  the  latter  had 
arisen  in  that  consummate  master  of  "machine" 


IN  THE    UNITED  STATES  SENATE.         327 

politics,  Aaron  Burr.  In  1792,  Jay,  then  chief 
justice  of  the  United  States,  had  run  for  gov 
ernor  against  Clinton,  and  had  received  the 
majority  of  the  votes ;  but  had  been  counted 
out  by  the  returning  board  in  spite  of  the  pro 
test  of  its  four  Federalist  members  —  Ganse- 
voort,  Roosevelt,  Jones,  and  Sands.  The  indig 
nation  was  extreme,  and  only  Jay's  patriotism 
and  good  sense  prevented  an  outbreak.  How 
ever,  the  memory  of  the  fraud  remained  fresh 
in  the  minds  of  the  citizens,  and  at  the  next 
election  for  governor  he  was  chosen  by  a  heavy 
majority,  having  then  just  come  back  from  his 
mission  to  England.  Soon  afterwards  his  treaty 
was  published,  and  excited  a  whirlwind  of  in 
dignation  ;  it  was  only  ratified  in  the  senate 
through  Washington's  great  influence,  backed 
by  the  magnificent  oratory  of  Fisher  Ames, 
whose  speech  on  this  occasion,  when  he  was 
almost  literally  on  his  death-bed,  ranks  among 
the  half  dozen  greatest  of  our  country.  The 
treaty  was  very  objectionable  in  certain  points, 
but  it  was  most  necessary  to  our  well-being, 
and  Jay  was  probably  the  only  American  who 
could  have  negotiated  it.  As  with  the  Ashbur- 
ton  treaty  many  years  later,  extreme  sections  in 
England  attacked  it  as  fiercely  as  did  the  ex 
treme  sections  here  ;  and  Lord  Sheffield  voiced 
their  feelings  when  he  hailed  the  war  of  1812 


328  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

as  offering  a  chance  to  England  to  get  back  the 
advantages  out  of  which  "  Jay  had  duped  Gren- 
ville." 

But  the  clash  with  France  shortly  afterwards 
swept  away  the  recollection  of  the  treaty,  and 
Jay  was  reflected  in  1798.  One  of  the  argu 
ments,  by  the  way,  which  was  used  against  him 
in  the  canvass  was  that  he  was  an  abolitionist. 
But,  in  spite  of  his  reelection,  the  New  York 
Democrats  were  steadily  gaining  ground. 

Such  was  the  situation  when  Morris  returned. 
He  at  once  took  high  rank  among  the  Federal 
ists,  and  in  April,  1800,  just  before  the  final 
wreck  of  their  party,  was  chosen  by  them  to 
fill  an  unexpired  term  of  three  years  in  the 
United  States  Senate.  Before  this  he  had  made 
it  evident  that  his  sympathies  lay  with  Hamil 
ton  and  those  who  did  not  think  highly  of 
Adams.  He  did  not  deem  it  wise  to  renomi- 
nate  the  latter  for  the  Presidency.  He  had 
even  written  to  Washington,  earnestly  beseech 
ing  him  to  accept  the  nomination ;  but  Wash 
ington  died  a  day  or  two  after  the  letter  was 
sent.  In  spite  of  the  jarring  between  the  lead 
ers,  the  Federalists  nominated  Adams  and 
Pinckney.  In  the  ensuing  Presidential  election 
many  of  the  party  chiefs,  notably  Marshall  of 
Virginia,  already  a  strong  Adams  man,  faith 
fully  stood  by  the  ticket  in  its  entirety ;  but 


IN   THE    UNITED  STATES  SENATE.          329 

Hamilton,  Morris,  and  many  others  at  the 
North  probably  hoped  in  their  hearts  that,  by 
the  aid  of  the  curious  electoral  system  which 
then  existed,  some  chance  would  put  the  great 
Carolinian  in  the  first  place  and  make  him 
President.  Indeed,  there  is  little  question  that 
this  might  have  been  done,  had  not  Pinckney, 
one  of  the  most  high-minded  and  disinterested 
statesmen  we  have  ever  had,  emphatically  de 
clined  to  profit  in  any  way  by  the  hurting  of 
the  grim  old  Puritan. 

The  house  thus  divided  against  itself  natu 
rally  fell,  and  Jefferson  was  chosen  President. 
It  was  in  New  York  that  the  decisive  struggle 
took  place,  for  that  was  the  pivotal  state  ;  and 
there  the  Democrats,  under  the  lead  of  the  Liv 
ingstones  and  Clintons,  but  above  all  by  the 
masterly  political  manoeuvres  of  Aaron  Burr, 
gained  a  crushing  victory.  Hamilton,  stung  to 
madness  by  the  defeat,  and  sincerely  believing 
that  the  success  of  his  opponents  would  be  fatal 
to  the  republic,  —  for  the  two  parties  hated  each 
other  with  a  blind  fury  unknown  to  the  organi 
zations  of  the  present  day,  —  actually  proposed 
to  Jay,  the  governor,  to  nullify  the  action  of  the 
people  by  the  aid  of  the  old  legislature,  a  Fed 
eralist  body,  which  was  still  holding  over,  al 
though  the  members  of  its  successor  had  been 
chosen.  Jay,  as  pure  as  he  was  brave,  refused 


330  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

to  sanction  any  such  scheme  of  unworthy  parti 
sanship.  It  is  worth  noting  that  the  victors  in 
this  election  introduced  for  the  first  time  the 
"  spoils  system,"  in  all  its  rigor,  into  our  state 
affairs  ;  imitating  the  bad  example  of  Pennsyl 
vania  a  year  or  two  previously. 

When  the  Federalists  in  Congress,  into  which 
body  the  choice  for  President  had  been  thrown, 
took  up  Burr,  as  a  less  objectionable  alternative 
than  Jefferson,  Morris,  much  to  his  credit, 
openly  and  heartily  disapproved  of  the  move 
ment,  and  was  sincerely  glad  that  it  failed.  For 
he  thought  Burr  far  the  more  dangerous  man  of 
the  two,  and,  moreover,  did  not  believe  that 
the  evident  intention  of  the  people  should  be 
thwarted.  Both  he  and  Hamilton,  on  this  oc 
casion,  acted  more  wisely  and  more  honestly 
than  did  most  of  their  heated  fellow-partisans. 
Writing  to  the  latter,  the  former  remarked: 
"  It  is  dangerous  to  be  impartial  in  politics  ; 
you,  who  are  temperate  in  drinking,  have  never 
perhaps  noticed  the  awkward  situation  of  a 
man  who  continues  sober  after  the  company  are 
drunk." 

Morris  joined  the  Senate  at  Philadelphia  in 
May,  1800,  but  it  almost  immediately  adjourned, 
to  meet  at  Washington  in  November,  when  he 
was  again  present.  Washington,  as  it  then 
was,  was  a  place  whose  straggling  squalor  has 


IN   THE   UNITED  STATES  SENATE.         331 

often  been  described.  Morris  wrote  to  the 
Princess  de  la  Tour  et  Taxis,  that  it  needed 
nothing  "  but  houses,  cellars,  kitchens,  well-in 
formed  men,  amiable  women,  and  other  little 
trifles  of  the  kind  to  make  the  city  perfect ; " 
that  it  was  "  the  very  best  city  in  the  world  for 
a  future  residence,"  but  that  as  he  was  "  not 
one  of  those  good  people  whom  we  call  poster 
ity,"  he  would  meanwhile  like  to  live  some 
where  else. 

During  his  three  years'  term  in  the  Senate  he 
was  one  of  the  strong  pillars  of  the  Federalist 
party  ;  but  he  was  both  too  independent  and 
too  erratic  to  act  always  within  strict  party 
lines,  and  while  he  was  an  ultra-Federalist  on 
some  points,  he  openly  abandoned  his  fellows 
on  others.  He  despised  Jefferson  as  a  tricky 
and  incapable  theorist,  skillful  in  getting  votes, 
but  in  nothing  else  ;  a  man  who  believed  u  in 
the  wisdom  of  mobs,  and  the  moderation  of 
Jacobins,"  and  who  found  himself  "in  the 
wretched  plight  of  being  forced  to  turn  out 
good  officers  to  make  room  for  the  unworthy." 

After  the  election  that  turned  them  out  of 
power,  but  just  before  their  opponents  took  of 
fice,  the  Federalists  in  the  Senate  and  House 
passed  the  famous  judiciary  bill,  and  Adams 
signed  it.  It  provided  for  a  number  of  new 
federal  judges  to  act  throughout  the  states, 


332  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

while  the  supreme  court  was  retained  as  the 
ultimate  court  of  decision.  It  was  an  excellent 
measure,  inasmuch  as  it  simplified  the  work  of 
the  judiciary,  saved  the  highest  branch  from 
useless  traveling,  prevented  the  calendars  from 
being  choked  with  work,  and  supplied  an  up 
right  federal  judiciary  to  certain  districts  where 
the  local  judges  could  not  be  depended  upon  to 
act  honestly.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Federal 
ists  employed  it  as  a  means  to  keep  themselves 
partly  in  power,  after  the  nation  had  decided 
that  they  should  be  turned  out.  Although  the 
Democrats  had  bitterly  opposed  it,  yet  if,  as  was 
only  right,  the  offices  created  by  it  had  been  left 
vacant  until  Jefferson  came  in,  it  would  prob 
ably  have  been  allowed  to  stand.  But  Adams, 
most  improperly,  spent  the  last  hours  of  his  ad 
ministration  in  putting  in  the  new  judges. 

Morris,  who  heartily  championed  the  measure, 
wrote  his  reasons  for  so  doing  to  Livingstone  ; 
giving,  with  his  usual  frankness,  those  that 
were  political  and  improper,  as  well  as  those 
based  on  some  public  policy,  but  apparently  not 
appreciating  the  gravity  of  the  charges  he  so 
lightly  admitted.  He  said:  "The  new  judi 
ciary  bill  may  have,  and  doubtless  has,  many 
little  faults,  but  it  answers  the  double  purpose 
of  bringing  justice  near  to  men's  doors,  and  of 
giving  additional  fibre  to  the  root  of  govern- 


IN   THE    UNITED   STATES  SENATE.         333 

ment.  You  must  not,  rny  friend,  judge  of  other 
states  by  your  own.  Depend  on  it,  that  in 
some  parts  of  this  Union,  justice  cannot  be 
readily  obtained  in  the  state  courts."  So  far, 
he  was  all  right,  and  the  truth  of  his  statements, 
and  the  soundness  of  his  reasons,  could  not  be 
challenged  as  to  the  propriety  of  the  law  itself ; 
but  he  was  much  less  happy  in  giving  his  views 
of  the  way  in  which  it  would  be  carried  out : 
"  That  the  leaders  of  the  federal  party  may  use 
this  opportunity  to  provide  for  friends  and  ad 
herents  is,  I  think,  probable  ;  and  if  they  were 
my  enemies,  I  should  blame  them  for  it. 
Whether  I  should  do  the  same  thing  myself  is 
another  question.  .  .  .  They  are  about  to  ex 
perience  a  heavy  gale  of  adverse  wind ;  can 
they  be  blamed  for  casting  many  anchors  to 
hold  their  ship  through  the  storm?"  Most 
certainly  they  should  be  blamed  for  casting 
this  particular  kind  of  anchor  ;  it  was  a  very 
gross  outrage  for  them  to  "  provide  for  friends 
and  adherents  "in  such  a  manner. 

The  folly  of  their  action  was  seen  at  once  ; 
for  they  had  so  maddened  the  Democrats  that 
the  latter  repealed  the  act  as  soon  as  they  came 
into  power.  This  also  was  of  course  all  wrong, 
and  was  a  simple  sacrifice  of  a  measure  of  good 
government  to  partisan  rage.  Morris  led  the 
fight  against  it,  deeming  the  repeal  not  only  in 


334  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

the  highest  degree  unwise  but  also  unconstitu 
tional.  After  the  repeal  was  accomplished,  the 
knowledge  that  their  greed  to  grasp  office  under 
the  act  was  probably  the  cause  of  the  loss  of  an 
excellent  law,  must  have  been  rather  a  bitter 
cud  for  the  Federalists  to  chew.  Morris  always 
took  an  exaggerated  view  of  the  repeal,  regard 
ing  it  as  a  death-blow  to  the  constitution.  It 
was  certainly  a  most  unfortunate  affair  through 
out  ;  and  much  of  the  blame  attaches  to  the  Fed 
eralists,  although  still  more  to  their  antagonists. 
The  absolute  terror  with  which  even  mod 
erate  Federalists  had  viewed  the  victory  of  the 
Democrats  was  in  a  certain  sense  justifiable  ; 
for  the  leaders  who  led  the  Democrats  to 
triumph  were  the  very  men  who  had  fought 
tooth  and  nail  against  every  measure  necessary 
to  make  us  a  free,  orderly,  and  powerful  nation. 
But  the  safety  of  the  nation  really  lay  in  the 
very  fact  that  the  policy  hitherto  advocated  by 
the  now  victorious  party  had  embodied  princi 
ples  so  wholly  absurd  in  practice  that  it  was 
out  of  the  question  to  apply  them  at  all  to  the 
actual  running  of  the  government.  Jefferson 
could  write  or  speak  —  and  could  feel  too  —  the 
most  high-sounding  sentiments;  but  once  it 
came  to  actions  he  was  absolutely  at  sea,  and 
on  almost  every  matter  —  especially  where  he 
did  well  —  he  had  to  fall  back  on  the  Federalist 


IN  THE    UNITED  STATES  SENATE.         335 

theories.  Almost  the  only  important  point  on 
which  he  allowed  himself  free  scope  was  that  of 
the  national  defenses  ;  and  here,  particularly  us 
regards  the  navy,  he  worked  very  serious  harm 
to  the  country.  Otherwise  he  generally  adopted 
and  acted  on  the  views  of  his  predecessors  ; 
as  Morris  said,  the  Democrats  u  did  more  to 
strengthen  the  executive  than  Federalists  dared 
think  of,  even  in  Washington's  day."  As  a 
consequence,  though  the  nation  would  certainly 
have  been  better  off  if  men  like  Adams  or 
Pinckney  had  been  retained  at  the  head  of  af 
fairs,  yet  the  change  resulted  in  far  less  harm 
than  it  bade  fair  to. 

On  the  other  hand  the  Federalists  cut  a  very 
sorry  figure  in  opposition.  We  have  never  had 
another  party  so  little  able  to  stand  adversity. 
They  lost  their  temper  first  and  they  lost  their 
principles  next,  and  actually  began  to  take  up 
the  heresies  discarded  by  their  adversaries. 
Morris  himself,  untrue  to  all  his  previous  record, 
advanced  various  states-rights  doctrines ;  and 
the  Federalists,  the  men  who  had  created  the 
Union,  ended  their  days  under  the  grave  sus 
picion  of  having  desired  to  break  it  up.  Morris 
even  opposed,  and  on  a  close  vote  temporarily 
defeated,  the  perfectly  unobjectionable  proposi 
tion  to  change  the  electoral  system  by  designat 
ing  the  candidates  for  President  and  Vice-Pres- 


336  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

ident ;  the  reason  lie  gave  was  that  he  believed 
parties  should  be  forced  to  nominate  both  of 
their  best  men,  and  that  he  regarded  the  Jef 
ferson-Burr  tie  as  a  beautiful  object-lesson  for 
teaching  this  point ! 

On  one  most  important  question,  however,  lie 
cut  loose  from  his  party,  who  were  entirely  in 
the  wrong,  and  acted  with  the  administration, 
who  were  behaving  in  strict  accordance  with 
Federalist  precepts.  This  was  in  reference  to 
the  treaty  by  which  we  acquired  Louisiana. 

While  in  opposition,  one  of  the  most  dis 
creditable  features  of  the  Republican-Demo 
cratic  party  had  been  its  servile  truckling  to 
France,  which  at  times  drove  it  into  open  dis 
loyalty  to  America.  Indeed  this  subservience 
to  foreigners  was  a  feature  of  our  early  party 
history;  and  the  most  confirmed  pessimist 
must  admit  that,  as  regards  patriotism  and  in 
dignant  intolerance  of  foreign  control,  the  party 
organizations  of  to-day  are  immeasurably  supe 
rior  to  those  of  eighty  or  ninety  years  back. 
But  it  was  only  while  in  opposition  that  either 
party  was  ready  to  throw  itself  into  the  arms 
of  outsiders.  Once  the  Democrats  took  the 
reins  they  immediately  changed  their  attitude. 
The  West  demanded  New  Orleans  and  the 
valley  of  the  Mississippi  ;  and  what  it  de 
manded  it  was  determined  to  get.  When  we 


IN  THE    UNITED   STATES  SENATE.         337 

only  had  the  decaying  weakness  of  Spain  to 
deal  with,  there  was  no  cause  for  hurry ;  but 
when  Louisiana  was  ceded  to  France,  at  the 
time  when  the  empire  of  Napoleon  was  a  match 
for  all  the  rest  of  the  world  put  together,  the 
country  was  up  in  arms  at  once. 

The  Administration  promptly  began  to  nego 
tiate  for  the  purchase  of  Louisiana.  Morris 
backed  them  up  heartily,  thus  splitting  off 
from  the  bulk  of  the  Federalists,  and  earnestly 
advocated  far  stronger  measures  than  had  been 
taken.  He  believed  that  so  soon  as  the  French 
should  establish  themselves  in  Xe\v  Orleans, 
we  should  have  a  war  with  them;  lie  knew  it 
would  be  impossible  for  the  haughty  chiefs  of 
a  military  despotism  long  to  avoid  collisions 
with  the  reckless  and  warlike  backwoodsmen 
of  the  border.  Nor  would  he  have  been  sorry 
had  such  a  war  taken  place.  He  said  that  it 
was  a  necessity  to  us,  for  we  were  dwindling 
into  a  race  of  mere  speculators  and  driveling 
philosophers,  whereas  ten  years  of  warfare 
would  bring  forth  a  crop  of  heroes  and  states 
men,  fit  timber  out  of  which  to  hew  an  em 
pire. 

Almost  his  last  act  in  the  United  States  Sen 
ate  was  to  make  a  most  powerful  and  telling 
speech  in  favor  of  at  once  occupying  the  terri 
tory  in  dispute,  and  bidding  defiance  to  Na- 


338  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

poleon.  He  showed  that  we  could  not  submit 
to  having  so  dangerous  a  neighbor  us  France, 
an  ambitious  and  conquering  nation,  at  whose 
head  was  the  greatest  warrior  of  the  age.  With 
ringing  emphasis  he  claimed  the  western  re 
gions  as  peculiarly  our  heritage,  as  the  prop 
erty  of  the  fathers  of  America  which  they  held 
in  trust  for  their  children.  It  was  true  that 
France  was  then  enjoying  the  peace  which  she 
had  wrung  from  the  gathered  armies  of  all 
Europe  ;  yet  he  advised  us  to  fling  down  the 
gauntlet  fearlessly,  not  hampering  ourselves  by 
an  attempt  at  alliance  with  Great  Britain  or 
any  other  power,  but  resting  confident  that,  if 
America  was  heartily  in  earnest,  she  would  be 
able  to  hold  her  own  in  any  struggle.  The  cost 
of  the  conquest  he  brushed  contemptuously 
aside;  he  considered  "that  counting-house 
policy,  which  sees  nothing  but  money,  a  poor, 
short-sighted,  half-witted,  mean,  and  miserable 
thing,  as  far  removed  from  wisdom  as  is  a 
monkey  from  a  man."  He  wished  for  peace ; 
but  he  did  not  believe  the  Emperor  would 
yield  us  the  territory,  and  he  knew  that  his 
fellow-representatives,  and  practically  all  the 
American  people,  were  determined  to  fight  for 
it  if  they  could  get  it  in  no  other  way;  there 
fore  he  advised  them  to  begin  at  once,  and 
gain  forthwith  what  they  wanted,  and  perhaps 


V 

IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  SENATE.    339 

their  example    would   inspirit   Europe   to   rise 
against  the  tyrant. 

It  was  bold  advice,  and  if  need  had  arisen  it 
would  have  been  followed ;  for  we  were  bound 
to  have  Louisiana,  if  not  by  bargain  and  sale 
then  by  fair  shock  of  arms.  But  Napoleon 
yielded,  and  gave  us  the  land  for  fifteen  mil 
lions,  of  which,  said  Morris,  "  I  am  content  to 
pay  my  share  to  deprive  foreigners  of  all  pre 
text  for  entering  our  interior  country  ;  if  noth 
ing  else  were  gained  by  the  treaty,  that  alone 
would  satisfy  me." 

Morris's  term  as  senator  expired  on  March 
4th,  1803,  and  he  was  not  reflected ;  for  New 
York  State  had  passed  into  the  hands  of  the 
Democrats.  Rut  he  still  continued  to  play  a 
prominent  part  in  public  affairs,  for  he  was  the 
leader  in  starting  the  project  of  the  Erie  canal. 
It  was  to  him  that  we  owe  the  original  idea  of  \ 
this  great  water-way,  for  he  thought  of  it  and 
planned  it  out  long  before  any  one  else.  He 
had  publicly  proposed  it  during  the  revolution 
ary  period;  in  1803  he  began  the  agitation  in 
its  favor  that  culminated  in  its  realization,  and 
he  was  chairman  of  the  Canal  Commissioners 
from  the  time  of  their  appointment,  in  1810, 
until  within  a  few  months  of  his  death.  The 
three  first  reports  of  the  Commission  were  all 
from  his  pen.  As  Stephen  Van  Rensselaer, 


340  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

himself  one  of  the  commissioners  from  the 
beginning,  said,  "  Gouverneur  Morris  was  the 
father  of  our  great  canal."  He  hoped  ultimate 
ly  to  make  it  a  ship  canal.  While  a  member 
of  the  commission,  he  not  only  discharged  his 
duties  as  such  with  characteristic  energy  and 
painstaking,  but  he  also  did  most  effective  out 
side  work  in  advancing  the  enterprise,  while 
he  mastered  the  subject  more  thoroughly  in  all 
its  details  than  did  any  other  man. 

He  spent  most  of  his  time  at  Morrisania,  but 
traveled   for  two   or   three   months  every  sum- 

V 

mer,  sometimes  going  out  to  the  then  "  far 
West,"  along  the  shores  of  Lakes  Erie  and  On 
tario,  and  once  descending  the  St.  Lawrence. 
At  home  he  spent  his  time  tilling  his  farm, 
reading,  receiving  visits  from  his  friends,  and 
carrying  on  a  wide  correspondence  on  business 
and  politics.  Jay's  home  was  within  driving 
distance,  and  the  two  fine  old  fellows  saw  much 
of  each  other.  On  the  25th  of  December,  1809, 
Morris,  then  fift}T-six  years  old,  married  Miss 
Anne  Gary  Randolph,  a  member  of  the  famous 
Virginia  family  ;  he  was  very  happy  with  her, 
and  by  her  he  had  one  son.  Three  weeks  after 
the  marriage  he  wrote  Jay  a  pressing  request 
to  visit  him  :  u  I  pray  you  will,  with  your 
daughters,  embark  immediately  in  your  sleigh, 
after  a  very  early  breakfast,  and  push  on  so  as 


IN  THE   UNITED  STATES  SENATE.         341 

to  reach  this  house  in  the  evening.  My  wife 
sends  her  love,  and  says  she  longs  to  receive 
her  husband's  friend  ;  that  his  sickness  must  be 
no  excuse,  for  she  will  nurse  him.  Come,  then, 
and  see  your  old  friend  perform  his  part  in  an 
old-fashioned  scene  of  domestic  enjoyment." 
Jay  was  very  simple  in  his  way  of  living ;  but 
Morris  was  rather  formal.  When  he  visited 
his  friend  he  always  came  with  his  valet,  was 
shown  straight  to  his  room  without  seeing  any 
one,  dressed  himself  with  scrupulous  nicety, — 
being  very  particular  about  his  powdered  hair, 
—  and  then  came  down  to  see  his  host. 

Although  his  letters  generally  dealt  with 
public  matters,  he  sometimes  went  into  home 
details.  He  thus  wrote  an  amusing  letter  to  a 
good  friend  of  his,  a  lady,  who  was  desirous, 
following  the  custom  of  the  day,  to  send  her 
boy  to  what  was  called  a  "  college  "  at  an  ab 
surdly  early  age  ;  he  closed  by  warning  her 
that  "  these  children  of  eleven,  after  a  four 
years'  course,  in  which  they  may  learn  to  smat- 
ter  a  little  of  everything,  become  bachelors  of 
arts  before  they  know  how  to  button  their 
clothes,  and  are  the  most  troublesome  and  use 
less,  sometimes  the  most  pernicious,  little  ani 
mals  that  ever  infested  a  commonwealth." 

At  one  time  he  received  as  his  guest  Moreau, 
the  exiled  French  general,  then  seeking  service 


342  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

in  the  United  States.  Writing  in  his  diary  an 
account  of  the  visit,  he  says:  kt  In  the  course 
of  our  conversation,  touching  very  gently  the 
idea  of  his  serving  (in  case  of  necessity)  against 
France,  he  declares  frankly  that,  when  the  oc 
casion  arrives,  he  shall  feel  no  reluctance  ;  that 
France  having  cast  him  out,  he  is  a  citizen  of 
the  country  where  he  lives,  and  has  the  same 
right  to  follow  his  trade  here  as  any  other  man." 
He  took  the  keenest  pleasure  in  his  life,  and 
always  insisted  that  America  was  the  pleasant- 
est  of  all  places  in  which  to  live.  Writing  to 
a  friend  abroad,  and  mentioning  that  he  re 
spected  the  people  of  Britain,  but  did  not  find 
them  congenial,  he  added :  "  But  were  the  man 
ners  of  those  countries  as  pleasant  as  the  people 
are  respectable,  I  should  never  be  reconciled  to 
their  summers.  Compare  the  uninterrupted 
warmth  and  splendor  of  America,  from  the  first 
of  May  to  the  last  of  September,  and  her  au 
tumn,  truly  celestial,  with  your  shivering  June, 
your  July  and  August  sometimes  warm  but 
often  wet,  your  uncertain  September,  your 
gloomy  October,  and  your  dismal  November. 
Compare  these  things,  and  then  say  how  a  man 
who  prizes  the  charm  of  Nature  can  think  of 
making  the  exchange.  If  you  were  to  pass  one 
autumn  with  us,  you  would  not  give  it  for  the 
best  six  months  to  be  found  in  any  other  coun- 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  SENATE.    343 

try.  .  .  .  There  is  a  brilliance  in  our  atmos 
phere  of  which  you  can  have  no  idea." 

He  thoroughly  appreciated  the  marvelous 
future  that  lay  before  the  race  on  this  continent. 
Writing  in  1801,  he  says:  "As  yet  we  only 
crawl  along  the  outer  shell  of  our  country.  The 
interior  excels  the  part  we  inhabit  in  soil,  in 
climate,  in  everything.  The  proudest  empire 
in  Europe  is  but  a  bauble  compared  to  what 
America  will  be,  must  be,  in  the  course  of  t\vo 
centuries,  perhaps  of  one  !  "  And  again,  "  With 
respect  to  this  country,  calculation  outruns 
fancy,  and  fact  outruns  calculation." 

Until  his  hasty,  impulsive  temper  became  so 
soured  by  partisanship  as  to  warp  his  judg 
ment,  Morris  remained  as  well  satisfied  with 
the  people  and  the  system  of  government  as 
with  the  land  itself.  In  one  of  his  first  letters 
after  his  return  to  America  he  wrote:  "There 
is  a  fund  of  good  sense  and  calmness  of  charac 
ter  here,  which  will,  I  think,  avoid  all  danger 
ous  excesses.  We  are  free :  we  know  it :  and 
we  know  how  to  continue  free."  On  another 
occasion,  about  the  same  time,  he  said  :  "  Nil 
desperandum  de  republica  is  a  sound  principle." 
Again,  in  the  middle  of  Jefferson's  first  term  : 
"  We  have  indeed  a  set  of  madmen  in  the  ad 
ministration,  and  they  will  do  many  foolish 
things ;  but  there  is  a  vigorous  vegetative 


844  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

principle  at  the  root  which  will  make  our  tree 
flourish,  let  the  winds  blow  as  they  may." 

He  at  fir&t  took  an  equally  just  view  of  our 
political  system,  saying  that  in  adopting  a  re 
publican  form  of  government  he  "not  only  took 
it,  as  a  man  does  his  wife,  for  better  or  worse, 
but,  what  few  men  do  with  their  wives,  know 
ing  all  its  bad  qualities."  Ke  observed  that 
there  was  always  a  counter  current  in  human 
affairs,  which  opposed  alike  good  and  evil. 
44  Thus  the  good  we  hope  is  seldom  attained, 
and  the  evil  we  fear  is  rarely  realized.  The 
leaders  of  faction  must  for  their  own  sakes  avoid 
errors  of  enormous  magnitude ;  so  tliat,  while 
the  republican  form  lasts,  we  shall  be  fairly 
well  governed."  He  thought  this  form  the 
one  best  suited  for  us,  and  remarked  that  "every 
kind  of  government  was  liable  to  evil;  that  the 
best  was  that  which  had  fewest  faults  ;  that 
the  excellence  even  of  that  best  depended 
more  on  its  fitness  for  the  nation  where  it  was 
established  than  on  intrinsic  perfection."  He 
denounced,  with  a,  fierce  scorn  that  they  richly 
merit,  the  despicable  demagogues  and  witless 
fools  who  teach  that  in  all  cases  the  voice  of  the 
majority  must  be  implicitly  obeyed,  and  that 
public  men  have  only  to  carry  out  its  will,  and 
thus  "acknowledge  themselves  the  willing  in 
struments  of  folly  and  vice.  They  declare  that 


IN  THE   UNITED  STATES  SENATE.         345 

in  order  to  please  the  people  they  will,  regardless 
alike  of  what  conscience  may  dictate  or  reason 
approve,  make  the  profligate  sacrifice  of  public 
right  on  the  altar  of  private  interest.  What 
more  can  be  asked  by  the  sternest  tyrant  of  the 
most  despicable  slave  ?  Creatures  of  this  sort 
are  the  tools  which  usurpers  employ  in  building 
despotism." 

Sounder  and  truer  maxims  never  were  ut 
tered  ;  but  unfortunately  the  indignation  nat 
urally  excited  by  the  utter  weakness  and  folly 
of  Jefferson's  second  term,  and  the  pitiable  in 
competence  shown  both  by  him,  by  his  suc 
cessor,  and  by  their  party  associates  in  dealing 
with  affairs,  so  inflamed  and  exasperated  Morris 
as  to  make  him  completely  lose  his  head,  and 
hurried  him  into  an  opposition  so  violent  that 
his  follies  surpassed  the  worst  of  the  follies  he 
condemned.  He  gradually  lost  faith  in  our  re-  , 
publican  system,  and  in  the  Union  itself.  His  >y, 
old  jealousy  of  the  West  revived  more  strongly 
than  ever  ;  he  actually  proposed  that  our  enor 
mous  masses  of  new  territory,  destined  one  day 
to  hold  the  bulk  of  our  population,  "should  be 
governed  as  provinces,  and  allowed  no  voice  in 
our  councils."  So  hopelessly  futile  a  scheme 
is  beneath  comment;  and  it  cannot  possibly  be 
reconciled  with  his  previous  utterances  when 
he  descanted  on  our  future  greatness  as  a  people, 


346  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

and  claimed  the  West  as  the  heritage  of  our  chil 
dren.  His  conduct  can  only  be  unqualifiedly 
condemned ;  and  he  has  but  the  poor  palliation 
that,  in  our  early  history,  many  of  the  leading 
men  in  New  York,  and  an  even  larger  pro 
portion  in  New  England,  felt  the  same  nar 
row,  illiberal  jealousy  of  the  West  which  had 
formerly  been  felt  by  the  English  statesmen  for 
America  as  a  whole. 

It  is  well  indeed  for  our  land  that  we  of 
this  generation  have  at  last  learned  to  think 
nationally,  and,  no  matter  in  what  state  we  live, 
to  view  our  whole  country  with  the  pride  of 
personal  possession. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

THE  NORTHERN   DISUNION  MOVEMENT  AMONG 
THE  FEDERALISTS. 

IT  is  a  painful  thing  to  have  to  record  that 
the  closing  act  in  a  great  statesman's  career  not 
only  compares  ill  with  what  went  before,  but 
is  actually  to  the  last  degree  a  discreditable  and 
unworthy  performance. 

Morris's  bitterness  and  anger  against  the  gov 
ernment  grew  apace ;  and  finally  his  hatred 
for  the  administration  became  such,  that,  to 
hurt  it,  he  was  willing  also  to  do  irreparable 
harm  to  the  nation  itself.  He  violently  op- 
posed  the  various  embargo  acts,  and  all  the 
other  governmental  measures  of  the  decade  be 
fore  the  war  ;  and  worked  himself  up  to  such 
a  pitch,  when  hostilities  began,  that,  though  one 
of  the  founders  of  the  Constitution,  though  for 
merly  one  of  the  chief  exponents  of  the  national 
idea,  and  though  once  a  main  upholder  of  the 
Union,  he  abandoned  every  patriotic  principle 
and  became  an  ardent  advocate  of  Northern 
secession. 


348  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

To  any  reasoning  student  of  American  history 
it  goes  without  saying  that  there  was  very  good 
cause  for  his  anger  with  the  administration. 
From  the  time  the  House  of  Virginia  came 
into  power,  until  the  beginning  of  Monroe's  ad 
ministration,  there  was  a  distinctly  anti-New 
England  feeling  at  Washington,  and  much  of 
the  legislation  bore  especially  heavily  on  the 
Northeast.  Excepting  Jefferson,  we  have  never 
produced  an  executive  more  helpless  than  Mad 
ison,  when  it  came  to  grappling  with  real  dan 
gers  and  difficulties.  Like  his  predecessor,  he 
was  only  fit  to  be  President  in  a  time  of  pro 
found  peace  ;  he  was  utterly  out  of  place  the 
instant  matters  grew  turbulent,  or  difficult  prob 
lems  arose  to  be  solved,  and  he  was  a  ridicu 
lously  incompetent  leader  for  a  war  with  Great 
Britain.  He  was  entirely  too  timid  to  have 
embarked  on  such  a  venture  of  his  own  accord, 
and  was  simply  forced  into  ik  by  the  threat  of 
losing  In's  second  term.  The  fiery  young  Dem 
ocrats  of  the  South  and  West,  and  their  broth 
ers  of  the  Middle  States,  were  the  authors  of 
the  war  ;  they  themselves,  for  all  their  bluster, 
were  but  one  shade  less  incompetent  than 
their  nominal  chief,  when  it  came  to  actual 
work,  and  were  shamefully  unable  to  make 
their  words  good  by  deeds. 

The  administration  thus  drifted  into  a  war 


THE  NORTHERN  DISUNION  MOVEMENT.    349 

which  it  had  neither  the  wisdom  to  avoid,  nor 
the  forethought  to  prepare  for.  In  view  of  the 
fact  that  the  war  was  their  own,  it  is  impossi 
ble  to  condemn  sufficiently  strongly  the  incred 
ible  folly  of  the  Democrats  in  having  all  along 
refused  to  build  a  navy  or  provide  any  other 
adequate  means  of  defense.  In  accordance  with 
their  curiously  foolish  theories,  they  persisted 
in  relying  on  that  weakest  of  all  weak  reeds, 
the  militia,  who  promptly  ran  away  every  time 
they  faced  a  foe  in  the  open.  This  applied 
to.  all,  whether  eastern,  western,  or  southern  ; 
the  men  of  the  northern  states  in  1812  and 
1813  did  as  badly  as,  and  no  worse  than,  the 
Virginians  in  1814.  Indeed,  one  of  the  good 
results  of  the  war  was  that  it  did  away  forever 
with  all  reliance  on  the  old-time  militia,  the 
most  expensive  and  inefficient  species  of  sol 
diery  that  could  be  invented.  During  the  first 
year  the  monotonous  record  of  humiliations  and 
defeats  was  only  relieved  by  the  splendid  vic 
tories  of  the  navy  which  the  Federalists  had 
created  twelve  years  previously,  and  which  had 
been  hurt  rather  than  benefited  in  the  inter 
vening  time.  Gradually,  however,  the  people 
themselves  began  to  bring  out  leaders  :  two, 
Jackson  and  Scott,  were  really  good  generals, 
under  whom  our  soldiers  became  able  to  face 
even  the  English  regulars,  then  the  most  for- 


350  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

midable  fighting  troops  in  the  world  ;  and  it 
must  be  remembered  that  Jackson  won  his 
fights  absolutely  unhelped  by  the  administra 
tion.  In  fact,  the  government  at  Washington 
does  not  deserve  one  shred  of  credit  for  any  of 
the  victories  we  won,  although  to  it  we  directly 
owe  the  greater  number  of  our  defeats. 

Granting,  however,  all  that  can  be  said  as  to 
the  hopeless  inefficiency  of  the  administration, 
both  in  making  ready  for  and  in  waging  the 
war,  it  yet  remains  true  that  the  war  itself  waa 
eminently  justifiable,  and  was  of  the  greatest 
service  to  the  nation.  We  had  been  bullied  by 
England  and  France  until  we  had  to  fight  to 
preserve  our  national  self-respect ;  and  we  very 
properly  singled  out  our  chief  aggressor,  though 
it  would  perhaps  have  been  better  still  to  have 
acted  on  the  proposition  advanced  in  Congress, 
and  to  have  declared  war  on  both.  Although 
nominally  the  peace  left  things  as  they  had 
been,  practically  we  gained  our  point;  and  we 
certainly  came  out  of  the  contest  with  a  greatly 
increased  reputation  abroad.  In  spite  of  the 
ludicrous  series  of  failures  which  began  with 
our  first  attempt  to  invade  Canada,  and  culmi 
nated  at  Bladensburg,  yet  in  a  succession  of  con 
tests  on  the  ocean  and  the  lakes,  we  shattered 
the  charmed  shield  of  British  naval  invincibility  ; 
while  on  the  northern  frontier  we  developed 


THE  NORTHERN  DISUNION  MOVEMENT.    351 

under  Scott  and  Brown  an  infantry  which,  un 
like  any  of  the  armies  of  continental  Europe, 
was  able  to  meet  on  equal  terms  the  British  in 
fantry  in  pitched  battle  in  the  open  ;  and  at 
New  Orleans  we  did  what  the  best  of  Napo 
leon's  marshals,  backed  by  the  flower  of  the 
French  soldiers,  had  been  unable  to  accomplish 
during  five  years  of  warfare  in  Spain,  and  in 
flicted  a  defeat  such  as  no  English  army  had 
suffered  during  a  quarter  of  a  century  of  un 
broken  warfare.  Above  all,  the  contest  gave 
an  immense  impetus  to  our  national  feeling, 
and  freed  our  politics  forever  from  any  depen 
dence  on  those  of  a  foreign  power. 

The  war  was  distinctly  worth  fighting,  and 
resulted  in  good  to  the  country.  The  blame 
that  attaches  to  Madison  and  the  elder  demo 
cratic-republican  leaders,  as  well  as  to  their 
younger  associates,  Clay,  Calhoun,  and  the  rest, 
who  fairly  flogged  them  into  action,  relates  to 
their  utter  failure  to  make  any  preparations  for 
the  contest,  to  their  helpless  inability  to  carry 
it  on,  and  to  the  extraordinary  weakness  and 
indecision  of  their  policy  throughout ;  and  on 
all  these  points  it  is  hardly  possible  to  visit 
them  with  too  unsparing  censure- 
Yet,  grave  though  these  faults  were,  they 
were  mild  compared  to  those  committed  by 
Morris  and  the  other  ultra-Federalists  of  New 


852  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

York  and  Ne\v  England.  Morris's  opposition 
to  the  war  led  him  to  the  most  extravagant 
lengths.  In  his  hatred  of  the  opposite  party 
he  lost  all  loyalty  to  the  nation.  He  cham 
pioned  the  British  view  of  their  right  to  impress 
seamen  from  our  ships  ;  he  approved  of  peace 
on  the  terms  they  offered,  which  included  a  cur 
tailment  of  our  western  frontier,  and  the  erec 
tion  along  it  of  independent  Indian  sovereign 
ties  under  British  protection.  He  found  space 
in  his  letters  to  exult  over  the  defeats  of  Bona 
parte,  but  could  spare  no  word  of  praise  for  our 
own  victories. 

He  actually  advocated  repudiating  our  war 
debt,1  on  the  ground  that  it  was  void,  being 
founded  on  a  moral  wrong  ;  and  he  wished  the 
Federalists  to  make  public  profession  of  their 
purpose,  so  that  when  they  should  come  back 
to  power,  the  holders  might  have  no  reason  to 
complain  that  there  had  been  no  warning  of 
their  intention.  To  Josiah  Quincy,  on  May 
15th,  he  wrote :  "  Should  it  be  objected,  as 
it  probably  will  to  favor  lenders  and  their 
associates,  that  public  faith  is  pledged,  it  may 
be  replied  that  a  pledge  wickedly  given  is  not 
to  be  redeemed."  He  thus  advanced  the  theory 
that  in  a  government  ruled  bv  parties,  which 

1  As,  for  instance,  in  a  letter  to  David  R.  Ogden,  April  5, 
1813. 


THE  NORTHERN  DISUNION  MOVEMENT.    353 

come  into  power  alternately,  any  debt  could  be 
repudiated,  at  any  time,  if  the  party  in  power 
happened  to  disapprove  of  its  originally  being 
incurred.  No  greenback  demagogue  of  the 
lowest  type  ever  advocated  a  proposition  more 
dishonest  or  more  contemptible. 

He  wrote  that  he  agreed  with  Pickering  that 
it  was  impious  to  raise  taxes  for  so  unjust  a 
war.  He  endeavored,  fortunately  in  vain,  to 
induce  ^Rufus  King  in  the  Senate  to  advocate 
the  refusal  of  supplies  of  every  sort,  whether  of 
men  or  money,  for  carrying  on  the  war ;  but 
King  was  far  too  honorable  to  turn  traitor. 
Singularly  forgetful  of  his  speeches  in  the 
Senate  ten  years  before,  he  declared  that  he 
wished  that  a  foreign  power  might  occupy  and 
people  the  West,  so  as,  by  outside  pressure, 
to  stifle  our  feuds.  He  sneered  at  the  words 
union  and  constitution,  as  being  meaningless. 
He  railed  bitterly  at  the  honest  and  loyal  ma 
jority  of  his  fellow-Federalists  in  New  York, 
who  had  professed  their  devotion  to  the  Union  ; 
and  in  a  letter  of  April  29th,  to  Harrison 
Gray  Otis,  —  who  was  almost  as  bad  as  him 
self, —  he  strongly  advocated  secession,  writing 
among  other  things  that  he  wished  the  New 
York  Federalists  to  declare  publicly  that  "  the 
Union,  being  the  means  of  freedom,  should  be 
prized  as  such,  but  that  the  end  should  not  be 


354  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

sacrificed  to  the  means."  By  comparing  this 
with  Calhoun's  famous  toast  at  the  Jefferson 
birthday  dinner  in  1830,  "  The  Union  ;  next  to 
our  liberty  the  most  dear ;  may  we  all  remem 
ber  that  it  can  only  be  preserved  by  respecting 
the  rights  of  the  states  and  distributing  equally 
the  benefit  and  the  burden  of  the  Union,"  it 
can  be  seen  how  completely  Morris's  utterances 
went  On  all  fours  with  those  of  the  great  nul- 
lifier. 

To  Pickering  he  wrote,  on  October  17th,  1814  : 
" 1  hear  every  day  professions  of  attachment  to 
the  Union,  and  declarations  as  to  its  importance. 
I  should  be  glad  to  meet  with  some  one  who 
could  tell  me  what  has  become  of  the  Union,  in 
what  it  consists,  and  to  what  useful  purpose  it 
endures."  He  regarded  the  dissolution  of  the 
Union  to  be  so  nearly  an  accomplished  fact  that 
the  only  question  was  whether  the  boundary 
should  be  *'  the  Delaware,  the  Susquehanna,  or 
the  Potomac  "  ;  for  he  thought  that  New  York 
would  have  to  go  with  New  England.  He  nour 
ished  great  hopes  of  the  Hartford  convention, 
which  he  expected  would  formally  come  out  for 
secession;  he  wrote  Otis  that  the  convention 
should  declare  that  the  Union  was  already 
broken,  and  that  all  that  remained  to  do  was 
to  take  action  for  the  preservation  of  the  inter 
ests  of  the  Northeast.  He  was  much  chagrined 


THE  NORTHERN  DISUNION  MOVEMENT.    355 

when  the  convention  fell  under  the  control  of 
Cabot  and  the  moderates.  As  late  as  January 
10,  1815,  he  wrote  that  the  only  proceeding 
from  which  the  people  of  his  section  would  gain 
practical  benefit  would  be  a  "  severance  of  the 
Union." 

In  fact,  throughout  the  war  of  1812  he  ap 
peared  as  the  open  champion  of  treason  to  the 
nation,  of  dishonesty  to  the  nation's  creditors, 
and  of  cringing  subserviency  to  a  foreign  power. 
It  is  as  impossible  to  reconcile  his  course  with 
his  previous  career  and  teachings  as  it  is  to  try 
to  make  it  square  with  the  rules  of  statesman 
ship  and  morality.  His  own  conduct  affords  a 
conclusive  condemnation  of  his  theories  as  to 
the  great  inferiority  of  a  government  conducted 
by  the  multitude,  to  a  government  conducted 
by  the  few  who  should  have  riches  and  educa 
tion.  Undoubtedly  he  was  one  of  these  few  ; 
he  was  an  exceptionally  able  man,  and  a 
wealthy  one;  but  he  went  farther  wrong  at 
this  period  than  the  majority  of  our  people  — 
the  "mob"  as  he  would  have  contemptuously 
called  them  —  have  ever  gone  at  any  time  ;  for 
though  every  state  in  turn,  and  almost  every 
statesman,  has  been  wrong  upon  some  issue  or_ 
another,  yet  in  the  long  run  the  bulk  of  the. 
people  have  always  hitherto  shown  themselves 
true  to  the  cause  of  right.  Morris  strenuously 


356  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

insisted  upon  the  need  of  property  being  de 
fended  from  the  masses  ;  yet  be  advocated  re 
pudiation  of  tbe  national  debt,  which  he  should 
have  known  to  be  quite  as  dishonest  as  the  re 
pudiation  of  his  individual  liabilities,  and  he 
was  certainly  aware  that  the  step  is  a  short  one 
between  refusing  to  pay  a  man  what  ought  to 
be  his  and  taking  away  from  him  what  actually 
is  his. 

There  were  many  other  Federalist  leaders 
in  the  same  position  as  himself,  especially  in 
the  three  southern  New  England  states,  where 
the  whole  Federalist  party  laid  itself  open  to 
the  gravest  charges  of  disloyalty.  Morris  was 
not  alone  in  his  creed  at  this  time.  On  the 
contrary,  his  position  is  interesting  because  it  is 
typical  of  that  assumed  by  a  large  section  of  his 
party  throughout  the  Northeast.  In  fact,  the 
Federalists  in  this  portion  of  the  Union  had 
split  in  three,  although  the  lines  of  cleavage 
were  not  always  well  marked.  Many  of  them 
remained  heartily  loyal  to  the  national  idea; 
the  bulk  hesitated  as  to  whether  they  should  go 
all  lengths  or  not ;  while  a  large  and  influential 
minority,  headed  by  Morris,  Pickering,  Quincy, 
Lowell  and  others,  were  avowed  disunionists. 
Had  peace  not  come  when  it  did,  it  is  probable 
that  the  moderates  would  finally  have  fallen 
under  the  control  of  these  ultras.  The  party 


THE  NORTHERN  DISUNION  MOVEMENT.    357 

developed  an  element  of  bitter  unreason  in  de 
feat  ;  it  was  a  really  sad  sight  to  see  a  body  of 
able,  educated  men,  interested  and  skilled  in 
the  conduct  of  public  affairs,  all  going  angrily 
and  stupidly  wrong  on  the  one  question  that 
was  of  vital  concern  to  the  nation. 

It  is  idle  to  try  to  justify  the  proceedings  of 
the  Hartford  convention,  or  of  the  Massachu 
setts  and  Connecticut  legislatures.  The  deci 
sion  to  keep  the  New  England  troops  as  an 
independent  command  was  of  itself  sufficient 
ground  for  condemnation  ;  moreover,  it  was  not 
warranted  by  any  show  of  superior  prowess  on 
the  part;  of  the  New  Englanders,  for  a  portion  of 
Maine  continued  in  possession  of  the  British  till 
the  close  of  the  war.  The  Hartford  resolutions 
were  so  framed  as  to  justify  seceding  or  not  se 
ceding  as  events  turned  out ;  a  man  like  Morris 
could  extract  comfort  from  them,  while  it  was 
hoped  they  would  not  frighten  those  who  were 
more  loyal.  The  majority  of  the  people  in  New 
England  were  beyond  question  loyal,  exactly  as 
in  1860  a  majority  of  Southerners  were  opposed 
to  secession  ;  but  the  disloyal  element  was  active 
and  resolute,  and  hoped  to  force  the  remainder 
into  its  own  way  of  thinking.  It  failed  sig 
nally,  and  was  buried  beneath  a  load  of  dis 
grace  ;  and  New  England  was  taught  thus  early 
and  by  heart  the  lesson  that  wrongs  must  be 


358  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

righted  within,  and  not  without  the  Union.  It 
would  have  been  well  for  her  sister  section  of 
the  South,  so  loyal  in  1815,  if  forty-five  years 
afterwards  she  had  spared  herself  the  neces 
sity  of  learning  the  same  lesson  at  an  infinitely 
greater  cost. 

The  truth  is  that  it  is  nonsense  to  reproach 
any  one  section  with  being  especially  disloyal 
to  the  Union.  At  one  time  or  another  almost 
every  state  has  shown  strong  particularistic 
leanings  ;  Connecticut  and  Pennsylvania,  for 
example,  quite  as  much  as  Virginia  or  Ken 
tucky.  Fortunately  the  outbursts  were  never 
simultaneous  in  a  majority.  It  is  ,as  impossible 
to  question  the  fact  that  at  one  period  or  an 
other  of  the  past,  many  of  the  states  in  each 
section  have  been  very  shaky  in  their  allegiance 
as  it  is  to  doubt  that  they  are  now  all  heartily 
loyal.  The  secession  movement  of  1860  was 
pushed  to  extremities,  instead  of  being  merely 
planned  and  threatened,  and  the  revolt  was  pe 
culiarly  abhorrent,  because  of  the  intention  to 
make  slavery  the  "  corner-stone  "  of  the  new 
nation,  and  to  reintroduce  the  slave  trade,  to  the 
certain  ultimate  ruin  of  the  Southern  whites ; 
but  at  least  it  was  entirely  free  from  the 
meanness  of  being  made  in  the  midst  of  a 
doubtful  struggle  with  a  foreign  foe.  Indeed, 
in  this  respect  the  ultra-Federalists  of  New 


THE  NORTHERN  DISUNION  MOVEMENT.    359 

York  and  New  England  in  1814  should  be  com 
pared  with  the  infamous  Northern  copperheads 
of  the  Vallandigham  stripe  rather  than  with 
the  gallant  confederates  who  risked  and  lost 
all  in  fighting  for  the  cause  of  their  choice. 
Half  a  century  before  fh& "  stars  and  bars" 
waved  over  Lee's  last  intrenchments,  perfervid 
New  England  patriots  were  fond  of  flaunting 
"  the  flag  with  five  stripes,"  and  drinking  to  the 
health  of  the  —  fortunately  stillborn  —  new  na 
tion.  Later  on,  the  disunion  movement  among 
the  Northern  abolitionists,  headed  by  Garrison, 
was  perhaps  the  most  absolutely  senseless  of  all, 
for  its  success  meant  the  immediate  abandon 
ment  of  every  hope  of  abolition. 

In  each  one  of  these  movements  men  of 
the  highest  character  and  capacity  took  part. 
Morris  had  by  previous  services  rendered  the 
whole  nation  his  debtor;  Garrison  was  one  of 
the  little  band  who,  in  the  midst  of  general 
apathy,  selfishness,  and  cowardice,  dared  to  de 
mand  the  cutting  out  of  the  hideous  plague 
spot  of  our  civilization  ;  while  Lee  and  Jackson 
were  as  remarkable  for  stainless  purity  and 
high-mindedness  as  they  were  for  their  consum 
mate  military  skill.  But  the  disunion  move 
ments  in  which  they  severally  took  part  were 
wholly  wrong.  An  Englishman  of  to-day  may 
be  equally  proud  of  the  valor  of  Cavalier  and 


360  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

Roundhead  ;  but,  if  competent  to  judge,  he 
must  admit  that  the  Roundhead  was  right.  So 
it  is  with  us.  The  man  who  fought  for  secession 
warred  for  a  cause  as  evil  and  as  capable  of 
working  lasting  harm  as  the  doctrine  of  the 
divine  right  of  kings  itself.  But  we  may  feel 
an  intense  pride  in  his  gallantry  ;  and  we  may 
believe  in  his  honesty  as  heartily  as  we  believe 
in  that  of  the  only  less  foolish  being  who  wishes 
to  see  our  government  strongly  centralized, 
heedless  of  the  self-evident  fact  that  over  such 
a  vast  land  as  ours  the  nation  can  exist  only 
as  a  Federal  Union  ;  and  that,  exactly  as  the 
liberty  of  the  individual  and  the  rights  of  the 
states  can  only  be  preserved  by  upholding  the 
strength  of  the  nation,  so  this  same  localizing 
of  power  in  all  matters  not  essentially  national 
is  vital  to  the  wellbeing  and  durability  of  the 
government. 

Besides  the  honorable  men  drawn  into  such 
movements  there  have  always  been  plenty  who 
took  part  in  or  directed  them  for  their  own  self 
ish  ends,  or  whose  minds  were  so  warped  and 
their  sense  of  political  morality  so  crooked  as  to 
make  them  originate  schemes  that  would  have 
reduced  us  to  the  impotent  level  of  the  Spanish- 
American  republics.  These  men  were  peculiar 
to  neither  section.  In  1803,  Aaron  Burr  of 
New  York  was  undoubtedly  anxious  to  bring 


THE  NORTHERN  DISUNION  MOVEMENT.    £61 

about  in  the  Northeast1  what  sixty  years  later 
Jefferson  Davis  of  Mississippi  so  nearly  suc 
ceeded  in  doing  in  the  South  ;  and  the  attempt 
in  the  South  to  make  a  hero  of  the  one  is  as 
foolish  as  it  would  be  to  make  a  hero  of  the 
other  in  the  North.  If  there  are  such  virtues 
as  loyalty  and  patriotism,  then  there  must  exist 
the  corresponding  crime  of  treason  ;  if  there  is 
any  merit  in  practicing  the  first,  then  there  must 
be  equal  demerit  in  committing  the  last.  Emas 
culated  sentimentalists  may  try  to  strike  from 
the  national  dictionary  the  word  treason  ;  but 
until  that  is  done,  Jefferson  Davis  must  be 
deemed  guilty  thereof. 

There  are,  however,  very  few  of  our  states 
men  whose  characters  can  be  painted  in  simple, 
uniform  colors,  like  Washington  and  Lincoln 
on  the  one  hand,  or  Burr  and  Davis  on  the 
other.  Nor  is  Morris  one  of  these  few.  His 
place  is  alongside  of  men  like  Madison,  Samuel 
Adams,  and  Patrick  Henry,  who  did  the  nation 
great  service  at  times,  but  each  of  whom,  at 
some  one  cr  two  critical  junctures,  ranged  him 
self  with  the  forces  of  disorder. 

After  the  peace  Morris  accommodated  himself 
to  the  altered  condition  with  his  usual  buoyant 
cheerfulness  ;  he  was  too  light-hearted,  and,  to 
say  the  truth,  had  too  good  an  opinion  of  him 
self,  to  be  cast  down  even  by  the  signal  failure 

1  People  sometimes  forget  that  Burr  was  as  willing  to  try 
sedition  in  the  East  as  in  the  West. 


S62  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

of  his  expectations  and  the  memory  of  the  by 
no  means  creditable  part  he  had  played.  Be 
sides,  he  had  the  great  virtue  of  always  good- 
humoredly  yielding  to  the  inevitable.  He 
heartily  wished  the  country  well,  and  kept  up 
a  constant  correspondence  with  men  high  in 
influence  at  Washington.  He  disliked  the 
tariff  bill  of  1816;  he  did  not  believe  in  duties 
or  imposts,  favoring  internal,  although  not  di 
rect,  taxation.  He  was  sharp-sighted  enough 
to  see  that  the  Federal  party  had  shot  its  bolt 
and  outlived  its  usefulness,  and  that  it  was  time 
for  it  to  dissolve.  To  a  number  of  Federalists 
at  Philadelphia,  who  wished  to  continue  the 
organization,  he  wrote  strongly  advising  them 
to  give  up  the  idea,  and  adding  some  very  sound 
and  patriotic  counsel.  "  Let  us  forget  party 
and  think  of  our  country.  That  country  em 
braces  both  parties.  We  must  endeavor,  there 
fore,  to  save  and  benefit  both.  This  cannot  be 
effected  while  political  delusions  array  good 
men  against  each  other.  If  you  abandon  the 
contest,  the  voice  of  reason,  now  drowned  in 
factious  vociferation,  will  be  listened  to  and 
heard.  The  pressure  of  distress  will  accelerate 
the  moment  of  reflection  ;  and  when  it  arrives 
the  people  will  look  out  for  men  of  sense,  ex 
perience,  and  integrity.  Such  men  may,  I  trust, 
be  found  in  both  parties ;  and  if  our  country  be 


THE  NORTHERN  DISUNION  MOVEMENT.    363 

delivered,  what  does  it  signify  whether  those 
who  operate  her  salvation  wear  a  federal  or 
democratic  cloak  ?  "  Tliese  words  formed  al 
most  his  last  public  utterance,  for  they  were 
penned  but  a  couple  of  months  before  his  death ; 
and  he  might  well  be  content  to  let  them 
stand  as  a  fit  closing  to  his  public  career. 

He  died  November  6,  1816,  when  sixty-four 
years  old,  after  a  short  illness.  He  had  suf 
fered  at  intervals  for  a  long  time  from  gout ; 
but  he  had  enjoyed  general  good  health,  as  his 
erect,  commanding,  well-built  figure  showed; 
for  he  was  a  tall  and  handsome  man.  He  was 
buried  on  his  own  estate  at  Morrisania. 

There  has  never  been  an  American  statesman 
of  keener  intellect  or  more  brilliant  genius. 
Had  he  possessed  but  a  little  more  steadiness 
and  self-control  he  would  have  stood  among  the 
two  or  three  very  foremost.  He  was  gallant 
and  fearless.  He  was  absolutely  upright  and 
truthful ;  the  least  suggestion  of  falsehood  was 
abhorrent  to  him.  His  extreme,  aggressive 
frankness,  joined  to  a  certain  imperiousness  of 
disposition,  made  it  difficult  for  him  to  get 
along  well  with  many  of  the  men  with  whom 
he  was  thrown  in  contact.  In  politics  he  was 
too  much  of  a  free  lance  ever  to  stand  very 
high  as  a  leader.  He  was  very  generous  and 
hospitable;  he  was  witty  and  humorous,  a 


364  GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS. 

charming  companion,  and  extremely  fond  of 
good  living.  He  had  a  proud,  almost  hasty 
temper,  and  was  quick  to  resent  an  insult.  He 
was  strictly  just ;  and  he  made  open  war  on  all 
traits  that  displeased  him,  especially  meanness 
and  hypocrisy.  He  was  essentially  a  strong 
man,  and  he  was  an  American  through  and 
through. 

Perhaps  his  greatest  interest  for  us  lies  in  the 
fact  that  he  was  a  shrewder,  more  far-seeing 
observer  and  recorder  of  contemporary  men  and 
events,  both  at  home  and  abroad,  than  any 
other  American  or  foreign  statesman  of  his 
time.  But  aside  from  this  he  did  much  lasting 
work.  He  took  a  most  prominent  part  in  bring 
ing  about  the  independence  of  the  colonies,  and 
afterwards  in  welding  them  into  a  single  power 
ful  nation,  whose  greatness  he  both  foresaw  and 
foretold.  He  made  the  final  draft  of  the  United 
States  Constitution ;  he  first  outlined  our  pres 
ent  system  of  national  coinage  ;  he  originated 
and  got  under  way  the  plan  for  the  Erie  Canal ; 
as  minister  to  France  he  successfully  performed 
the  most  difficult  task  ever  allotted  to  an  Amer 
ican  representative  at  a  foreign  capital.  With 
all  his  faults,  there  are  few  men  of  his  gener 
ation  to  whom  the  country  owes  more  than  to 
Gouverneur  Morris. 


INDEX. 


ADAMS,  JOHN,  52;  appointed  com 
missioner,  119 ;  repudiates  com 
mand  of  Congress,  120 ;  share  in 
most  important  treaty,  124  ;  ab 
sent  from  National  Convention, 
133  ;  nominated  for  the  Presiden 
cy,  328  ;  signs  judiciary  bill,  331 ; 
appoints  new  judges,  332. 

Adams,  Samuel,  77,  79,  128. 

Allen,  Ethan,  46. 

America,  successful,  117,  118,  131, 
132,  144. 

American  army,  suffering  of,  76,  77  ; 
commissioners,  119,  120,  121,  123, 
124;  Constitutional  Convention, 
delegates  in,  133  ;  contrasted  with 
States  General  of  France,  134, 
135,  136 ;  independence,  122,  123 ; 
leaders  compared  with  European, 
82,  83;  navy,  196,  291;  triumph, 
123,  124. 

Americans,  in  Revolutionary  War, 
5  ;  of  1 776,  compared  with  those  of 
Civil  War,  49,  50. 

Ames,  Fisher,  327. 

Assembly,  33,  36,  37,  44. 

Bank  of  North  America,  103. 

Bastile,  the,  211,  225,  226. 

Battle  of  Bennington,  69 ;  Brandy- 
wine,  75  ;  Princeton,  48 ;  Trenton, 
48,  49;  Guilford  Court  House, 
113. 

Battles  on  soil  of  New  York,  3,  4. 

British  allies,  49,  50,  68,  119  ;  war 
ships,  43,  47. 

Brunswick,  Duke  of,  284,  285. 

Burgoyne,  49,  68,  72,  74,  78  ;  breach 
of  faith  with,  125. 

Burke,  Edmund,  39. 

Burr,  Aaron,  329,  330,  360  ;  and  Jef 
ferson  Davis,  361. 

Butler,  147, 157. 


Calhoun,  famous  toast  of,  354. 

Canada,  45,  89,  90. 

Carolinas,  the,  8,  11,  30,  45,  50. 

Carroll,  40. 

Church  of  Rome,  65. 

Churches,  9,  13,  16,  17,  18,  19. 

Civil  War,  people  in  the,  49,  50. 

Clermont-Tonnerre,  Count  de,  179. 
203. 

Clinton,  George,  10 ;  chosen  gov 
ernor,  68,  327 ;  as  a  politician, 
97,  128. 

Clintons,  the,  10,  20,  68. 

Colonial  contests,  3  ;  legislature, 
20,  21,  33. 

Colonies,  11. 

Confederation,  condition  of,  after 
the  war,  126. 

Congress.  See  Continental ;  see 
Provincial. 

Connecticut,  45,  46. 

Constitution,  its  character,  136, 141, 
142  ;  opposition  to  its  adoption. 
165,  167. 

Continental  Congress,  the,  36;  dis 
honorable  acts,  73,  78,  79,  80 ;  its 
condition  at  end  of  1779,  99  ;  es 
tablishes  four  departments,  103 ; 
instructions  to  commissioners, 
119,  120. 

Convention,  New  York,  59,  65 ;  na 
tional,  133-139. 

Cornwallis,  114,  116. 

Council  of  appointment,  64,  155  ;  of 
revisions,  64,  155  ;  of  safety,  67, 
68,71. 

Cruger,  14,  45. 

Currency,  condition  of,  105 ;  table 
proposed,  107. 

Dalrymple,  General,  125. 
Danton,  270,  287,  296. 
Davis,  Jefferson,  361. 


366 


INDEX. 


D'Artois,  Count  (Charles  X.),  217, 
306. 

Deane,  Silas,  93. 

Decimal  system,  104,  107. 

Declaration,  of  Independence,  47, 
53  ;  of  Rights,  178. 

De  Lancys,  1G,  21,  45. 

D'Estaing,  Count,  264. 

De  Flahaut,  Madame,  204-207. 

Democracy,  145. 

Democrats,  137,  138. 

Departments,  103. 

De  Stael,  203  ;  Madame,  179,  199  ; 
vanity  of,  200,  201  ;  want  of  deli 
cacy,  202,  203  ;  her  estimate  of 
the  Abbe  Sieyes,  247  ;  grief  for 
Lafayette,  317. 

Disunion  movements,  358,  359,  SCO. 

Dollar,  the  Spanish,  106,  107. 

Dumouriez,  2C9-272. 

Dutch,  descendants  of,  9 ;  language, 
13  ;  republicans,  17  ;  battle  with 
English,  115 ;  in  war  with  Spain, 
132. 

Ellsworth,  Oliver,  ICO. 

England,  treatment  of  her  Ameri 
can  subjects,  4,  5  ;  grounds  of 
complaint,  5  ;  courage,  116 ;  inso 
lence,  323. 

English,  stock,  people  of,  5,  126  ; 
language,  12,  13  ;  historians,  117  ; 
hostile  feeling,  228,  229 ;  society, 
230,  231  ;  climate,  342. 

Episcopalians,  13,  16, 18,  21,  60. 

Esterhazy,  311,  312. 

Extremists,  20. 

Federalism,  138,  322,  323. 

Federalist  party,  leaders  of,  92,  137, 
138. 

Federalists,  141,  156,  321,  323,  331, 
334,335. 

Foreign  or  non-English  elements, 
11,  12,  13,  34. 

Foreigners,  movement  against,  157. 

Fox,  123,  233,  23G. 

France,  treaty  with,  88  ;  would  have 
Americans  dependent  allies,  121, 
122,  123;  contrasted  with  Amer 
ica,  184  ;  destitute  of  statesmen, 
241. 

Franklin  appointed  commissioner, 
119,  ICO,  124 ;  delegate  to  National 
Convention,  133  ;  advocate  of  weak 
central  government,  137. 

French,  motives,  89,  90  ;  struggles 
with  England,  115;  navy,  116; 
admirals,  117;  government,  121; 
character,  186-189;  noblesse  and 


common  people,  212  ;  Revolution, 
170-175,  244,  258-263. 

Gates,  71,  72,  73,  74. 

Generals,  of  Revolution,  52,  116 ;  in 
Civil  War,  52. 

Genet,  292. 

George  III.,  8,  228,  231. 

Georgia,  8,  11,  50,  160. 

Gerard,  89,  90,  122. 

German  auxiliaries,  119. 

Germany,  144, 145,  165. 

Gibraltar,  115,  116,  122. 

Government,  130,  131,  144,  145. 

Governor,,  name  obnoxious,  62,  63. 

Gower,  Lord,  276. 

Great  Britain  and  American  sub 
jects,  4,  6  ;  odds  against,  115 ;  hos 
tility  to  American  trade,  128. 

Greene,  45,  52,  86, 113,  115,  116, 117. 

Hamilton,  Alexander,  10,  52,  92, 
102, 104,  111  ;  delegate  to  National 
Convention,  133 ;  advocate  of 
strong  government,  137,  138  ;  in 
favor  of  domestic  manufactures, 
156  ;  proposes  basis  of  representa 
tion,  158  ;  assisted  in  writing  the 
"  Federalist,"  166  ;  procures  rati 
fication  of  the  Constitution,  167  ; 
passing  coolness  with  Morris, 
320  ;  his  haughtiness,  326 ;  defeat 
by  Democrats,  329. 
Hancock,  John,  79. 

j  Hartford  Convention,  357. 
Henry,  Patrick,  128, 324. 

1  Herkomer,  10. 

|  Holland,  116. 

|  Huguenots,  9,  10,  65. 

Impressment  of  American  sailors, 

233,  234. 

Independence,  55,  56,  88. 
India,  115,  116. 
Indian  warfare,  3,  4,  8,  74. 
Infidels,  289. 
Irish,  in  New  England,  12 ;  of  1776, 

21  ;  in  Revolutionary  armies,  34  ; 

in  Civil  War,  35. 

Jackson,  General,  349,  350. 
J  Jay,  John,  admitted  to  the  bar,  23 ; 
in  Continental  Congress,  41,  42  ; 
resolution  indorsing  Declaration 
of  Independence,  58;  plan  for 
state  constitution,  62,  63  ;  article 
on  toleration,  65  ;  would  abolish 
slavery,  C6,  67 ;  on  committee  to 
organize  state  government,  67 ; 
defends  Schuyler's  cause,  72  ;  re« 


INDEX. 


867 


Inforcements  for  Gates,  73  ;  chief 
justice,   75;  wishes  well  to  Old 
England,  92  ;  of  Puritanic  moral 
ity,  110;  friendship  with  Morris, 
111 ;  minister  to  Spain,  111 ;  views 
on  education  of  children,  111  ;  af 
fection  for  America,   112;   com 
missioner,  111);    repudiates  com 
mand    of    Congress,    120;     true 
policy  summed   up,   123 ;  his  the 
chief  part  in  treaty,  124 ;  secre 
tary  for  foreign  affairs,  133  ;  helps 
Hamilton  oil   the    "  Federalist,"  I 
16G ;  a  strong  Federalist,  301,  32G  ;  ! 
appointed  to  negotiate   treaty  in  I 
Enul  in  1,  301,  302,  327  ;  governor,  ' 
327,  323,  329 ;  visits  to  and  from  i 
Morris,  3K),  341. 

Jefferson,  52,  104,  107, 108, 129,  131,  j 
133 ;  important  truth  taught  by 
him,  138 ;  American  minister  to 
France,  17G,  177;  treatment  of 
Morris,  292  ;  incompetence  when 
President,  334,  335,  318. 

Johnsons,  tha,  17,  38,  45. 

Judiciary  bill,  331-334. 

King,  Rufns,  252,  353. 
King's  College,  3,  18. 

Lafayette,  85,  8G,  117,  176,  177,  178, 
180,  181,  184,  187  ;  his  character, 
221, 222,  273  ;  ideas  impracticable, 
240,  241 ;  proclaimed  and  impris 
oned,  273,  274  ;  released,  317. 

Lafayette,  Madame  de,  181,  274, 
275. 

Lake  Champlain,  4,  68. 

Lake  George,  3. 

Leaders,  52  ;  loyalist,  16,  45  ;  revo 
lutionary,  1C,  49. 

Lecky,  117,  118. 

Leeds,  Duke  of,  231,  233,  237. 

Lincoln,  52,  133,  138. 

Lineage,  10,  34. 

Livingston,  Robert,  10,59;  on  com 
mittee  to  organize  state  govern 
ment,  G7  ;  chancellor,  75  ;  secre 
tary  of  foreign  affairs,  103. 

Livingstons,  the,  21,  326. 

Louis  XVI.,  216,  250,  254,  255,  256, 
2SG. 

Louis  XVII.,  307. 

Louis  Philipp?,  317,  318. 

Louisiana,  33G,  337,  339. 

Loyalists,  16,  29,  45,  119,  167. 

Luzerne,  236. 

Madison,  129 ;  delegate  to  National 
Convention,  133;  during  forma 


tion  of  Constitution,  139, 140, 145, 
150,  153, 162 ;  compliment  to  Mor 
ris,  165  ;  assists  Hamilton  in  wri 
ting  the  "Federalist,"  166;  aa 
President,  348. 

Manorial  families,  14,  15,  19. 

Marie  Antoinette,  225,  288. 

Marmontel,  247. 

Marshall,  325. 

Mason,  George,  160. 

Merchants,  15,  19,  21. 

Militia,  69,  70,  72,  113,  114. 

Mirabeau,  136,  174,  200,  222,  223. 

Mississippi,  90,  91,  95,  112,  113,  148. 

Money,  24,  37,  128.  . 

Monroe,  293  ;  recalled  and  rebuked, 
300  ;  a  foolish  minister,  301,  302. 

Montmorin,  Count  de,  218,  249. 

Moreau,  General,  341,  342. 

Morris,  Gouverneur,  birth,  1 ;  de 
scent,  2 ;  boyhood,  3  ;  college  ca 
reer,  20,  22 ;  takes  part  in  public 
affairs,  23,  24  ;  desire  for  foreign 
travel,  25 ;  narrow  means,  26 ;  in 
society,  27 ;  little  faith  in  extreme 
democracy,  30,,  31  ;  dislike  for 
mobs,  31,  32 ;  plans  for  reunion 
with  Great  Britain,  32,  33  ;  dele 
gate  to  Provincial  Congress,  35, 
36;  report  and  speech,  37,  38; 
objects  to  eighth  article  of  report, 
41 ;  at  head  of  patriotic  party,  46, 
47,  53;  able  speech  in  favor  of 
new  governments,  53-58 ;  mem 
ber  of  committees,  59 ;  position  in 
regard  to  the  Tories,  60,  61  ;  for 
mation  of  State  Constitution,  62- 
67  ;  at  Schuyler's  headquarters, 
G8-71 ;  efforts  in  behalf  of  Sehuy- 
ler,  72 ;  secures  reinforcements  for 
Gates,  73  ;  letters  to  Schuyler,  74, 
75  ;  elected  to  Continental  Con 
gress,  76  ;  visits  Valley  Forge,  77  ; 
a  good  financier,  78,  80,  86  ;  en 
deavors  to  secure  approval  of 
Washington's  plans,  78,  79,  83,  85 ; 
letter  to  "Washington,  84  ;  friend 
ship  with  Greene,  86  ;  report  on 
Lord  North's  conciliatory  bills, 

88  ;    prepares    "  Observations    on 
the   American    Revolution,"   88; 
drafts   instructions  to    Franklin, 

89  ;  reply  to  French  minister,  91  ; 
"  Observations  on  the  Finances  of 
America,"  91  ;    his  loyalist  rela 
tives,   92,   93 ;    controversy  with 
Thomas  Paine,  93,  94 ;  drafts  in 
structions  to   our  foreign  minis 
ters,  94,  95  ;  dispute  of  New  York 
with  Vermont,  96,  97  ;  fails  of  re- 


368 


INDEX. 


election,  98  ;  life  in  Philadelphia, 
99 ;  publishes  essays  on  the  finan 
ces,  100,  101,  102 ;  assistant  finan 
cier,  103;  founder  of  national 
coinage,  104,  105,  IOC,  107  ;  enjoy 
ment  in  society,  108,  110  ;  serious 
injury,  109 ;  want  of  insight  into 
the  future,  112, 113;  foresees  final 
success  of  Greene,  113  ;  letters  to 
Jay,  118,  120,  127;  advocates  a 
firmer  Union,  129,  130;  in  Con 
stitutional  Convention,  133,  139, 
140;  has  no  regard  for  States- 
rights,  142-145;  jealousy  of  the 
West,  14C,  147 ;  views  on  the 
suffrage,  149-153;  on  the  power 
of  the  President,  153,  154  ;  on  the 
judiciary,  155  ;  on  Congress,  156  ; 
speeches  on  the  slavery  question, 
158,  159 ;  a  warm  advocate  of 
the  Constitution,  1C6 ;  return  to 
New  York,  1C7  ;  acts  in  behalf  of 
loyalists,  167;  residence  in  France, 
1G9 ;  letters  and  diary,  170,  175, 
176,  183;  hostile  to  spirit  of 
French  Revolution,  170-175;  at 
home  in  Parisian  society,  176 ; 
opinion  of  Jefferson,  177;  of  La 
fayette,  178,  181  ;  views  on  French 
politics,  183-186;  distrust  of 
French  character,  185,  186,  188, 
189  ;  National  Assembly,  190,  191 ; 
a  true  republican  and  American, 
193,  194  ;  minor  services  to  Wash 
ington,  195 ;  correspondence  with 
Paul  Jones,  196  ;  life  in  Paris,  197, 
198,  199;  opinion  of  Madame  de 
Stael,  199-204;  intimacy  with 
Madame  de  Flahaut,  204-207  ;  ac 
quaintance  with  the  Duchess  of 
Orleans,  207-211,  245,  246;  liter 
ary  life  of  the  salSn,  213-215; 
judgment  of  his  contemporaries, 
216,  219-223;  of  French  people, 
224  ;  advice  to  a  certain  painter, 
226 ;  mission  to  British  govern 
ment,  227,  229 ;  English  not  con 
genial,  229,  230;  impatience  at 
delay,  233 ;  interview  with  Pitt, 
234 ;  is  blamed  for  failure  of  ne 
gotiations,  236 ;  trip  through 
Netherlands  and  up  the  Rhine, 
237  ;  speculations  of  various  kinds, 
238,  239 ;  advice  to  Lafayette, 
240-243,  200  ;  letter  to  Washing 
ton,  243-245;  fondness  for  the 
theatre,  247  ;  dislike  to  priest 
hood,  248,  249  ;  interest  in  home 
affairs,  250;  made  minister  to 
France,  252  ;  is  advised  by  Wash 


ington,  252,  253  ;  plans  for  escape 
of  the  king  and  queen,  254,  255, 
256 ;  his,  a  brilliant  chapter  in 
American  diplomacy,  257,  258 ; 
horror  of  the  mob,  260,  261 ;  his 
house  a  place  of  refuge,  263,  264 ; 
picture  of  the  French,  265-268; 
generosity  to  Lafayette  family, 
274,  275 ;  remains  in  Paris,  276, 
277  ;  spirited  conduct  when  har 
assed,  278,  279  ;  payment  of  Amer 
ican  debt,  280,  281 ;  irritates  the 
executive  council,  281, 282;  French 
privateers,  283 ;  commentary  on 
passing  events,  283-291 ;  is  re 
called,  292,  293 ;  as  foreign  min 
ister  to  be  honored,  264,  294; 
accurate  forecast  of  events,  295 ; 
clear  views  of  French  Revolution, 
298  ;  journeys  in  Europe,  302 ;  no 
longer  an  impartial  judge,  303 ; 
estimate  of  Napoleon,  303,  304  ; 
in  Switzerland,  304;  in  Great 
Britain,  305;  opinion  of  royalist 
refugees,  306,  307  ;  in  Berlin,  308, 
315 ;  in  Vienna,  310-315  ;  dealings 
with  Louis  Philippe,  317,  318; 
return  to  New  York,  320 ;  elected 
to  Senate,  328 ;  disapproves  of 
Burr,  330 ;  opinion  of  Jefferson, 
331 ;  speech  in  favor  of  occupying 
Louisiana,  337,  338;  fails  of  re 
election,  339  ;  leader  in  project  of 
Erie  canal,  389,  340 ;  life  at  Mor- 
risania,  340 ;  marriage,  340  ;  form 
ality,  341 ;  compares  America  and 
England,  342 ;  loses  his  satisfac 
tion  with  the  people  and  the  gov 
ernment,  and  becomes  soured,  345; 
advocates  northern  secession,  347  ; 
loses  his  loyalty  to  the  nation, 
352-359 ;  closing  acts  of  his  career 
unworthy  of  him,  352-355 ;  after 
the  peace,  361 ;  gives  sound  and 
patriotic  counsel,  362,  363  ;  death, 
363;  character  and  services,  363, 
364. 

Morris,  Robert,  102,  103,  133. 

Morris,  Staats  Long,  15,  61,  167. 

Morrisania,  1,  167,  340. 

Morrises,  the,  2. 

Narbonne,  Chevalier  de,  202,  203. 

National  Union,  126,  140. 

Nationalists,  141. 

Necker,  199,  200,  218,  219,  220. 

New  England,  11,  161,  324 ;  Puri 
tans,  5  ;  militia,  69  ;  members  of 
Continental  Congress,  71,  79,  80. 

New  Rochelle,  3. 


INDEX. 


369 


New  York  city,  1 ;  society  in,  26 ; 
exposed  positions,  43  ;  entered  by 
Continental  forces,  46 ;  lelt  by 
peaceable  citizens,  48;  held  by 
British,  116. 

New  York  colony,  1,  3;  battles  in, 
3,  4  ;  claim  of  liberty  as  a  right, 
6 ;  loyalty,  7,  8 ;  many  nationali 
ties,  9,  10 ;  churches,  9  ;  ethnic 
type,  11;  rivalries,  14;  govern 
ment,  14  ;  three  parties,  19  ;  in 
debt,  23  ;  not  in  full  sympathy 
with  the  patriots,  35,  36  ;  soldiers 
in  royal  armies,  44  ;  famous  Tory 
leaders,  45 ;  second  Provincial 
Congress,  46 ;  third  Provincial 
Congress,  47  ;  Declaration  of  In 
dependence  ratified,  and  State 
Constitution  organized,  47  ;  adop 
tion  of  the  national  Constitution, 
165,  167. 

New  York  State,  48  ;  party  contests, 
3-26. 

New  Yorkers,  13,  33,  96. 

North  Carolina,  165. 

North,  Lord,  conciliatory  bills  of, 
87. 

Officers,  in  trade,  81  ;  foreign,  85 ; 

French,  in  American  Revolution, 

2G4. 

Oriskany,  fight  at,  10,  12,  72. 
Orleans,  Duchess  of,  207,  208,  209, 

245,  246. 
Orleans,  Duke  of  (EgalittS),  207,  216, 

275.  2 
Otis,  Harrison  Gray,  353. 

Paine,  Thomas,  93,  208,  289. 

Paris,  266,  267  ;   factions  in,   269 ; 

changed,  270. 
Paul  Jones,  196. 
Pennsylvania,  28,  157,  166,  324. 
Philadelphia,  110. 
Pinckney,  145,  326,  328,  329. 
Pitt,  233,  234,  237. 
Presbyterians,  14,  18,  21. 
Prisoners,  exchange  of,  125. 
Provincial  Congress,  34,  35,  38,  39, 

43,  46,  47,  53,  58. 
Proviso  regarding  toleration,  66. 
Prussia,  308,  309. 

Quebec,  10  ;  bill,  41. 
Queen's  County,  44,  46. 


Randolph,  292. 
Representation  of  slave 

158,  164. 
Republican  party,  141. 


i,  157, 


Republicanism,  extreme,  20. 
Revolution,  enemies  in,  49,  68  ;  two 
sides  of,  30  ;  officers  of,  79  ;  men 
of,  81,  82  ;  influence  of,  compared 
with  that  of  French,  298,  299. 
Revolutionary     armies      compared 
with  those  in  Civil  War,  50,  51,  81. 
.'  Rhode  Island,  126,  105,  l6i). 
:  Riedesel,  "  America,"  303  ;  General, 
••      316. 

Rodney,  116,  117. 
Rohan,  Cardinal  de,  249. 
Roman  Catholics,  9,  39,  64,  65. 
!  Royalist  party,  19,  20: 
Rumford,  Count,  316. 
Russia,  168. 

Schuyler,  Philip,  10,  68,  69,  71  ;  re 
placed  by  Gates,  71,  72,  73;  his 
noble  behavior,  74. 
|  Scott,  General,  349. 
Sherman,  Roger,  71. 
Sieyes,  the  Abbe,  136,  246.     _  - 
Six  Nations,  3. 

Slavery,  question  of,  66,  67, 157-165. 
i  Sons  of  Liberty,  31,  43. 
I  South  Carolina,  80,  145,  160,  325. 
Southern  States,  115,  147,  148,  158, 

161,  162,  163. 
!  Spain,  90,  91,  112,  115,  120,  121, 122, 

123,  148. 
I  Spanish- Americans,  131,  132. 

St.  Clair,  General,  69. 
I  St.  Patrick's  Day,  21. 
!  Stamp  Act,  4. 
1  Stark,  69. 

States  General,  134,  184,  224. 
Statesmen,  51,52,  134. 
Suffrage  not  an   inborn  or  natural 
right,  149,  150,  157. 

Taine,  183. 

Talleyrand,  204,  221,  247,  277. 
Tarleton,  Colonel,  247. 
Tesse,  Comtesse  de,  181,  182. 
Toleration,  39,  64,  65,  66. 
Tories,  35,  44,  50,  60,  61,  68,  92, 167. 
Tory  leaders,  45. 

Treaty,  124;   obligations  of,  unful 
filled,  227,  228  ;  Jay's.  327. 
Trio,  great  American,  133. 
Tryon,  royal  governor,  44. 

Valley  Forge,  49,  76. 
Vergennes,  121,237. 
Vermont,  70,  96,  98. 
Virginia,  114,  160,  161,  105 ;  her 


statesmen  and  warriors,  325. 
War  of  1812,  148,  349,  350. 


370 


INDEX. 


Warriors,  51,  52,  325. 

Washington,  33,  44,  47,  48 ;  states 
man,  soldier,  patriot,  52  ;  difficul 
ties,  78,  79  ;  confidence  in  Morris, 
83  ;  dislike  to  foreign  officers,  85  ; 
letter  to  Jay,  118;  delegate  in 
National  Convention,  133 ;  letter 
to  Morris,  189,  190;  views  with 
regard  to  French  Revolution,  191, 
192,  252,  292,  293 ;  a  watch  for, 
195 ;  statue  by  Hudon,  1! 


I      advice,  252,  253  ;  recalls  Monroe, 
300;    reply  to  letter  of  Morris, 
300 ;    distrust   of  Jefferson,  and 
Madison,  321. 
i  West,  the,  140,  147,  148. 
:  Whig  families,  20,  21. 
White  Plains,  53. 

Wisdom  of  many  worth  more  than 
wisdom  of  one,  136,  137. 

76, 116. 


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